LA Market
So, like, Australian rock band INXS? They’re, like, totally, into huitlacoche – you know, corn truffles? And Playboy bunnies? You should see them hop on a plate of cotton candy and Froot Loop bars.
“The girls when they come in they always order it,” says Chef Kerry Simon about bunny love for his collection of childhood treats called the Junk Food Platter. “They specially want to make sure that I’m there to serve it to them.”
Chef Simon – aka: the “Rock n’Roll chef” -- cut his chops in three-star restaurants and made his name plying celebrities like David Bowie and Sting with playful yet accomplished helpings of Americana. At LA Market, located in the city’s buzziest new entertainment hub, he captures the celebrity vibe in everything from the see-and-be-seen dining room wrapped in towering glass to the reality-TV star working the open kitchen.
“I don’t think it tries to be L.A.,” Chef Simon says about his restaurant, where Chef de Cuisine Nona Sivley got her job by winning Season 8 of Hell’s Kitchen. “it just is L.A.”
With a real homey touch. The menu nods to modern California with dishes like chili-spiked Tuna Dynamite and “sushi pizza,” a wasabi-sauced pie topped with tuna, crab and avocado. But it’s the thick, molasses-spiked barbeque sauce of Chef Simon’s meatloaf and the creamy macaroni and cheese that invoke childhood. His burger – a homey affair with bacon, onions and cheddar – earns star status when he adds beer and mushrooms, the recipe that made him an Iron Chef.
“All my stuff is about having fun,” Chef Simon says. “It’s about making people happy.”
JW Marriott
900 W. Olympic Blvd. 1st Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90015
900 W. Olympic Blvd. 1st Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90015