It's (Probably) April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman After All at The Cat & Fiddle

Well, after a bit of ill-informed business intel from sources inside the restaurant community that pointed to a business deal gone south, compounded by an innocuous partnership name that would seem at first blush to signal a restaurant group in San Francisco, it appears that — indeed — April Bloomfield is coming to Los Angeles after all.

Or maybe it’s Ken Friedman. Or maybe it’s both. Let’s explain:

Ever since the initial closure of the Cat & Fiddle, back-end rumors have swirled that the “outstanding first class operators” angling to take over the space might just be none other than the duo behind New York City landmarks like The Spotted Pig, The Breslin, and Salvation Taco. Reps for the pair have all along refused to comment (and continue to do so now), and the Atlanta-based managing partner for the developers who own the property wouldn’t say anything except to disclose that the forthcoming restaurant would definitely not be an Applebee’s. Still, Bloomfield and Friedman’s name kept popping up.

Fast forward to yesterday, when an ABC license showing a Biergarten LLC as Managing Member popped up for the Cat & Fiddle’s address. In the state of California, Biergarten LLC points to a reasonably successful restaurant group based out of San Francisco. Of course, there’s no clear DBA name given for the restaurant, and an ownership LLC for the license (6530 Sunset Boulevard Restaurant LLC) simply points back to the address of the restaurant itself. So, Biergarten LLC it is.

But, as one sharp-witted anonymous commenter pointed out yesterday, that ownership LLC with the name that matches the address of the restaurant actually holds an active entity address in New York City — the same address, of course, of April Bloomfield’s New York-based Biergarten LLC.

And so, despite an out of state managing member listed as an operator for the former Cat & Fiddle space (and sharing a name with a well-known California restaurant group), as well as an opaque ownership LLC — and off-the-record word of at least one Bloomfield/Friedman L.A. deal that fell through prior to this ABC license going live — it would seem that all (hidden) points do in fact lead back to New York’s favorite beguiling restaurateurs.

So will Cat & Fiddle actually become a second Spotted Pig after all? For now, that’s just rumor.