Sean Brock Goes Minimalist At Darling, His First Los Angeles Restaurant

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📝 usncan Note: Sean Brock Goes Minimalist At Darling, His First Los Angeles Restaurant

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One thing about creativity at the highest level, whether it’s painting, writing, composing, directing or cooking, is that it’s about finding those moments when the rhythm just flows in your head. And when you’ve ascended to the top of the game, with work that’s inspired many others, earned you the most prestigious accolades and been chronicled on Netflix, you might realize that it’s time to focus on the simplest beats.

So here’s James Beard Award-winning, Chef’s Table-featured chef Sean Brock, humbly asking Los Angeles to give him time to figure things out as he opens his first West Coast restaurant. Darling, Brock’s live-fire destination and hi-fi listening lounge, will debut in West Hollywood on Sunday.

“I think, after 32 years in the kitchen, approaching 50 years old, I’m finally ready to truly understand minimalism and cook that way and finally have the confidence and courage to do that,” the 47-year-old Brock says at a preview of Darling. “That’s a lot easier here with these extraordinary products.”

Brock is obviously referring to the local produce and proteins that makes cooking in Los Angeles such a joy. He tells a story about going to the farmers market with his wife and two children.

“We got lost, of course,” he says. “I was just running around. I got pulled behind some truck somewhere, and somebody started feeding me these plums and pluots, and my family was trying to find me. They found me by following my laughter. The food was so good, I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m so thrilled to have the opportunity to handle these products.”

Brock adds that he and chef de cuisine Ben Norton, who was previously executive chef at Husk in Nashville and McCrady’s in Charleston, will be experimenting with woods as much as they will with ingredients. They’re starting by cooking with six different woods as they determine what everything from orange wood to mesquite imparts on California products.

Brock takes us into the kitchen and shows us how he’s using a pizza oven to burn wood down into coals. And the centerpiece of the kitchen is a custom wood-fired grill that was hand-forged by Chris Demant, who has been working with Brock since the original Husk that opened in Charleston 15 years ago.

Darling is about local ingredients and simple wood-fired cooking.

Ron De Angelis

Darling is a restaurant that’s about going back to basics. It’s about wood and smoke and fire and soil and sunlight and ocean. It’s about asking farmers and purveyors to send different ingredients every month.

Brock, who points out that having access to abalone is a new adventure for an Appalachian chef who grew up in rural Virginia, is excited to debut dishes like Luna Koshihikari rice with grilled abalone and celtuce stew.

“For me, it’s an incredible opportunity to learn,” Brock says.

Opening menu items also include Shigoku oysters on ice with Bonny melon juice and borage; venison tartare with lovage, buckwheat and zucchini cornichon; citrus-wood-grilled Wolfe Ranch quail with huckleberries and nasturtium-avocado purée; and red oak-grilled-grilled bone-in strip steak with swiss chard and black truffle. There will also be exactly 24 dry-aged steak burgers available each evening. Bar director Jason Lee is embracing Darling’s ethos with cocktails that showcase Bonny melon, eggplant and seaweeds.

Brock says he loves tasting things he’s never tried before. He’s excited to learn as he goes at Darling. It’s a joy to wake up every day and see, both figuratively and literally, new colors.

At the same time, there’s something refreshingly old-school and analog about Darling. Brock is hearkening back to a pre-lardcore era in Darling’s listening lounge, where he has a DJ booth and a personal collection of 45s that are categorized by, among other things, BPM.

“It’s the rhythm of a place that happens naturally that I’m fascinated with,” says Brock, who was obviously inspired by Japan as he created Darling. But he also mentions Nashville, Miami, Jamaica and even Appalachia as he talks about how different areas have their own distinct rhythms. (“I grew up on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere,” he says. “That’s lonely.”)

The dining room, meanwhile, features Narsiso Martinez’s Legal Tender. That striking 23-by-7-foot painting on produce boxes pays tribute to the immigrant labor that powers America’s farming and restaurant industries. This is, as Brock says, an important piece, especially now. Respecting ingredients and knowing their origin stories is a big part of Darling’s foundation. And as always with Brock, it’s time to light some fires.