Is Joël Robuchon Looking to Open a Restaurant in LA?

Let's just cut right to the chase. A restaurant insider tells Eater that Joël Robuchon, the esteemed French chef and restaurateur with more Michelin stars than Hollywood Boulevard, is looking to open un restaurant à Los Angeles. BOOM. Robuchon supposedly checked out the dead Philippe space on Melrose, but wasn't completely sold on the locale and is thus casting his line elsewhere around town.

For anyone living under a rock, Joël Robuchon operates restaurants across the globe from Las Vegas to Tokyo. The itinerant chef spends 10 months out of the year traveling between these kids, making sure Joël Robuchon's 16-courser is executed to perfection and the foie gras-stuffed quail at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon is moist as ever. And back to those Michelin stars. Robuchon counts 28 between his restaurant empire, more than any chef in the world.

Robuchon operates fine dining, heavy hitter restaurants under his name, Joël Robuchon, along with the slightly more casual (casual is all relative here) L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon where one can walk away spending $200 a head as opposed to $500 a head. If you go for the 16-couse degustation at the namesake.

Two years ago Robuchon said that he would like to open a restaurant in LA and at that time Wolfgang Puck told him Beverly Hills would be a smart fit. Robuchon specifically thought L'Atelier would work especially well in LA and stated that since he already operates Joël Robuchon and L'Atelier in Las Vegas, LA is just a stone's throw away and it would be easy for him to check up on eateries in both cities. He also confessed his love for sun and beach. And then there's his love for In-N-Out.

Eater reached out to one of Robuchon's reps in Las Vegas on the subject of an LA restaurant, though this individual claimed to not know anything about such plans.

The news of Robuchon scouting LA comes on the heels of a shutter. Robuchon's L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon inside Manhattan's Four Seasons hotel will throw in the towel on June 30. [EaterWire]