Beach Feb 2018

food
The infinity view at Strand House. Photos courtesy of Strand House
Evolution of a dining destination
Dinner at the Strand House in downtown Manhattan Beach is typically expensive,
36 Easy Reader / Beach magazine • February 8, 2018
but the experience is anything but typical
by Richard Foss
Strand House opened in 2011 to the very highest of expectations. The
former dance club had been renovated by an internationally known
design team, and founding chef Travis Lorton collaborated on the
menu with Neal Fraser, one of LA’s top chefs. The menu was easily the
most ambitious in the South Bay, featuring unusual heirloom vegetables,
arcane seasoning combinations, and housemade cured and smoked meats.
Crowds showed up to see if this was going to set the standard for fine dining
in the South Bay or be the biggest flop ever.
Seven years later the Strand House still has a crowd most nights and is
still leading the pack in adventurous dining. That said, there have been subtle
changes in style that show a refined focus. In the early days an exuberant
kitchen team decided they could do everything in-house. They made their
own bacon and performed other time and labor intensive tasks. As the
restaurant’s chef-partner Greg Hozinsky observed, when he took over they
were doing some things just because they could, not because the result was
a superior product.
Hozinsky made some changes when he took the reins, and new Executive
Chef Austin Cobb has added his own signature to the eclectic mix of items
here. The flavors are still complex but more reliant on the natural flavors
of seasonal produce, and there is a an American sensibility rather than the
Italian focus of earlier days.
Some items from days past are still on the menu, such as the hand-torn
pasta with housemade lamb sausage, roasted fennel, blistered tomatoes,
pine nuts, and chili. Since this involves using several cooking methods before
combining them, you can see that the tendency toward complexity is
alive and well. Those different methods give each bite bursts of flavors
that are complementary rather than unified so that you’re still finding new
harmonies of flavor in the last bite.
Another small plate shows Cobb’s gift with simpler but still inventive
combinations. I never would have thought of roasting cauliflower with bits
of pineapple and adding pickled onions. This was served over coconut
cream with faint notes of chili and curry, and the combination of tropical
flavors with a winter vegetable was brilliant. Another starter offers comfort
food for the modern crowd, Spanish octopus in a Peruvian-influenced style.
The crispy corn kernels, confit potato, and yellow chili and garlic sauce are
traditional pairings, and thanks to fine technique there were many textures
and flavors to savor. This showed a restraint that is rare in the industry, because
a creative chef knew when to just leave a winning combination alone.
The same was true of a main course of a grilled Kurobuta pork chop,
which was served with braised purple cabbage, crispy spaetzle, and apple
chutney. This is soul food if you’re from Germany or places in the U.S. that
have a large German population. If your grandmother is visiting from Wisconsin
and wonders if she can find anything to eat here the answer is yes.
Grandma may find the décor a bit modern and the sound level a bit high
for her taste, but the hearty flavors will win her over.
Other items are more multicultural, such as the Ora king salmon that is
topped with a mix of sliced radishes, pickles, and roasted tomato in a Japanese
yuzu sauce and served over a French-style pesto. The mix of citrus and