Bruce Kalman Teams Up With Fellow Top Chef Alum For New Westside Project

Chef Bruce Kalman is on the move again. The longtime Los Angeles Italian chef recently stepped away from his duties at Pasadena’s hit dinner spot Union, and is now planning something big on the Westside.

Kalman tells Eater that he’ll be partnering up with Tyler Anderson, a native Californian who spent years working on the East Coast before appearing on Top Chef alongside Kalman last season. The two apparently forged a particularly strong bond, one big enough to get Anderson back and cooking on the West Coast once again.

So what’s up the duo’s sleeve? A project called West, which Kalman says in an email will focus “on wood-fire cooking with the highest quality, local ingredients, in a fast-casual setting.” That description leaves a lot to the imagination, of course, but it’s hard to see Kalman completely abandoning the Italian backbone of pastas, pork meatballs, and roasted meats completely behind. Anderson is no slouch either of course, having been nominated for multiple James Beard Foundation Awards over the years.

Kalman won’t say exactly where the restaurant will be located on the greater Westside, but he is debuting at least a taste of the restaurant at this weekend’s L.A. Loves Alex’s Lemonade charity event. Perhaps some enterprising attendee can get him to spill the beans on the project’s whereabouts tomorrow, even though the restaurant isn’t slated to open until sometime in early 2019.

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