Food & Drink
Mr. T Cafe is in partnership with one of the world’s most accomplished French pastry chefs, Francois Daubinet, whose resume includes Paris’s Hôtel de Crillon, three-Michelin-starred Plaza Athénee, two-Michelin-starred Le Taillevent, and famed patisserie Fauchon.
The menu is best characterized as Vietnamese Californian with shrimp and pork spring rolls, spicy chile okra, shaking beef, and a flavorful caramelized butternut squash with pepitas, pineapple sauce, and herbs.
“It’s become a cool little community,” Portnoy, 47, told The Post of the event, which will feature slices from 35 pizzerias in the tri-state area — including Prince Street in Nolita, Brooklyn’s legendary’s Di Fara and New Haven’s Frank Pepe — all of which he has personally tasted for his popular One Bite pizza reviews.
“Opening on the corner of Sunset and Highland, across the street from Hollywood High School, adjacent to a Chick-fil-A, a couple 100 yards from an In-N-Out, [and inside] a former McDonald’s building is about as emblematic as you can get of our aspiration to be the future of quick-service restaurants,” Hooper told Eater in 2023.
These days, current proprietor Ernie Rossi’s presence at the feast outside his Little Italy storefront is known for an array of custom and novelty shirts which has lately caught itself in the midst of a fashion trend (including the eminent Daddy’s Little Meatball apparel).
At Sylva, Branson and Wareing have developed a process to not only extract the full flavour profile of traditional barrel wood and grain varieties, but explore the use of trees from all over the world.
Then-LA Weekly restaurant critic Jonathan Gold dubbed Son of a Gun “a kick-ass Florida fish house” and called the “smoked steelhead roe with dots of maple-flavored cream and razor-thin shards of pumpernickel toast” his favorite dish.
For the latter, diners can order combos like chicharrĂłn en salsa verde and bistec con papa that make for a formidable plate when accompanied by sides like two fried eggs, rice, refried beans, queso fresco, and five flour tortillas.
Both companies recruited Scratch Restaurant Group veteran chef and Los Angeles native Carlos Couts, who developed a menu of traditional Japanese dishes that employ a casual yet adventurous approach.
Their menu is full of winners, but I suggest the Nasty Nacho Platter—tortilla chips topped with their white queso cheese sauce, jalapeños, tomatoes, scallions, and served with a side of sour cream and salsa.
The food leans American in plating and construction with Indian flavors, like a scallop sliced into thirds swimming in cauliflower crema and okra masala, or an arresting whipped yogurt sauce built into a dreamy pavlova covering crisp pakoda chaat (spinach fritters).
Owners Joram Young, Scott Lunceford, and Sean Kelly opened the New York-style pizza parlor in June 2014 serving traditional slices and out-of-the-box options topped with mole, pulled pork, corn, and queso fresco.