Curtis Stone’s Michelin-Starred Tasting Menu Restaurant Maude Is Back in Action

After almost two years of closure and a short stint as an Australian-style pie shop, Curtis Stone’s flagship Michelin-starred restaurant Maude has reopened as of yesterday, February 14. With its small indoor dining room, Stone was forced to pivot the space to Pie Room by Gwen during the bulk of the pandemic, focusing on savory and sweet pies plus a slew of other well-done baked goods. Now, he’s shifted back to the Beverly Hills space’s original purpose, marking yet another restaurant of note in busy Beverly Hills.

Stone has brought on fine dining veteran Osiel Gastelum, who trained at Dominique Crenn and was the chef de cuisine at Somni before coming to Maude, to take on the same title overseeing Maude. Gastelum will be infusing the tasting menu with ingredients like nopales and masa, reflecting his upbringing in Sinaloa and Southern California.

While Maude began as a monthly menu featuring a single ingredient, it eventually transitioned to quarterly menus focusing on specific wine regions in a clear effort to appeal to world-traveling Michelin-star-chasing diners. The effort worked, as Maude was one of Los Angeles’s one Michelin-starred spots in the guide’s return back in 2019. Recall that Stone openly called for the Michelin guide to come back to Los Angeles after a nearly decade-long hiatus, hoping to shine line not just on his restaurants but the overall upscale dining scene in the city.

Maude returns with a nine-course, $195 menu, offering dishes like a crab-shaped tuile over apple and citrus; nopales with jicama and avocado; seabass infladita with wakame; and abalone with Suncoast farm beans, clams, and ham hock. The new tasting courses are less strict about their regional perspectives or ingredient showcase, and more about being a seasonal, thoughtful tasting of well-rounded ingredients. Stone himself said the lack of theme gives the restaurant less experimentation and more of a dialed-in perspective that will make it more friendly for special occasions. With the achievement of getting a Michelin star, it seems Maude serves its purpose as a still pricey but not fully unattainable place for anniversaries, birthdays, and the like.

Maude is open Tuesday to Saturday, 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. In addition to the menu, there are two options for wine pairings: a $125 classic pairing and $225 reserve, meaning a fully paired meal for two people could easily surpass $1000 after tax and gratuity. Reservations are available on Resy, though the next two weeks are already booked.

Andrea D’Agosto

Andrea D’Agosto

Andrea D’Agosto

Clay Larsen