Restaurant: Maude

Location:212 South Beverly Drive. Beverly Hills, CA. (310) 859-3418

Date: December 11, 2014

Cuisine: Modern

Rating: Good, but slightly deconstructed

I’ve wanted to try Maude since it opened last February,  but the annoying reservation system turned me off. They open reservations by phone only on the first Saturday of the month before for the whole month. I spent 40 minutes autodialing with 3 people on 4 phones and we ended up with two completely random reservations. Ours was at 5:30 on  a Tuesday. Really, they should raise prices or use the website or both.

Anyway, the restaurant has a  very unusual format. All prix fix. Chef Curtis Stone sums it up as follows: “One Key Ingredient. Nine Courses. Twenty-Five Seats. My dream little restaurant.” Each month has a different ingredient and a single fixed menu. Ours was Winter Squash.

The interior is really cute. It reminded me more of New York or some other “classier” city than LA. It’s tiny, but filled with elegant (but casual) little details. It’s not modernist or particularly hipster (thank God).

The kitchen is open and busy. There’s even a small “bar” (think 4 seat sushi bar) looking into the kitchen.

Tonight’s menu.

Soapbox time! They do have one of those annoying corkage policies too. $50, which would be fine, except it’s one bottle per couple. Now this is far, far more sensible than the fixed number per table, as it works tolerably for 6-8 person tables (which they barely have), but still I don’t get it. I understand that restaurants need to make money off beverages. I understand that they have a cute little wine list. But $50 a bottle should cover it, and the limit isn’t going to make serious wine people buy off the list. They don’t and can’t possibly have a list that serves us. Not without investing a fortune. We brought 3 bottles per couple. My friend Michael brought the whites and I brought the reds. They don’t have and couldn’t reasonably have any Burgundy we’d be interested in on the list. Nor unless they priced them stunningly low would I buy them at wine list price. So why have the limit? It only discourages serious wine guys from dining. If anyone in the restaurant business has any idea why this increasingly common policy makes any sense, I’d love to hear it in the comments.

On the plus side, the Sommelier/wine director was extremely nice, friendly, and knowledgeable. Extremely nice. He did a great job.

Picking the white was tough. We also has a 2002 Jadot Montrachet and a 2000 Domaine d’Auvenay (Lalou Bize-Leroy) Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Folatières! I went with the Coche because — well I love Coche, but Michael and I promised to save our respective other wines to drink with each other at a later date. Great deal!

2000 Coche-Dury Meursault Les Chevalières. Burghound 92. The tightest and most precise of the three 2000 Meursault villages wines of stunning intensity and simply unbelievable purity and this stains and coats the palate with wet stones and an interesting chalky texture. This will require time and should age well for at least a decade as the acidity is ripe and vibrant, giving the flavors real lift, especially on the wonderfully persistent backend.

Pumpkin Lardo. Pumpkin wrapped in pig fat. Yep, that white stuff is the white part off a prosciutto, or close. The dish was very soft and mild.

A vegetarian variant with just pumpkin.

Pillows. These had some kind of pumpkin/squash in them along with sesame or something? They tasted nutty. The out bit was crispy. Delicious.

Maude does have its rules. No flash too 🙁 I had to use an iphone to get a modicum of light. After this, I’ve now ordered a bigass LED light with 160 diodes! haha! It may not flash, but it will be bright! But until then, these photos have a pathetic depth of field.

Squash Salad. Duck breast, Farro, watercress, Pumpkin.

And a reverse shot of it that shows off the duck better. All the elements of this dish were very nice, and there were LOTS of textures going on. The foam. The sauce blobs. Shaved vegetable. Leaf. The dusty freeze-dried stuff. The meat. The problem was there was no was to get any great number of them in your mouth at once, so the whole thing felt a bit deconstructed and discombobulated.

Hiramasa Crudo. Bottarga, Pumpkin Cured Salmon Roe, Dashi Gel. This dish gelled better. haha. The hamachi, the tangy sauce, and the crunchy bits (probably the bottarga?) made a nice pairing.

A vegetarian substitute.

Striped Bass. Little gem. Anchovy. Chicken. I’m guessing the chicken was in the form of the cracklings (which were awesome), and the fish was nicely done. Although again it was a bit hard to get the other elements in one bite.

The consume for the next dish came out in this cool chemistry set.

Which continued to boil the broth up into the rosemary!

Consomme. Squid, Beech, Fennel. Here is the soup before the soup. You can see all the little bits

Then with the broth added. This was a nice dish and I’m a big fan of a good consomme.

I brought the reds. We also has a 93 Jadot Beze and a 98 Bachelet Charmes VV on hand.

From my cellar: 1997 Domaine Anne Gros Richebourg. JG 92+. Fresh, expressive and elegant aromas of cherries, black berries and pinot extract followed by medium weight, relatively fine, nicely detailed flavors that lack a bit of mid palate density. There is better acidity than most of the wines in this group and one is struck by the finesse, unusual for both the appellation at such a young age and certainly the vintage. In sum, this is beautifully detailed rather than dense with fine but prominent finishing tannins. While it could be drunk and enjoyed now, it should continue to improve.

Oxtail Raviolo. Spaghetti Squash, truffle, Rye Crumble. A tasty dish, it had a light foamy quality with an unusual mixture of textures that I’m now picking up as a Curtis Stone signature. The soft foam, the squirmy squash, the crunch crumble.

Pheasant. Kabocha squash, parsley root, pearl onion. Very tasty dish. The poultry was small but very tasty.

A vegetarian version.

Pork Foul. Beef Tendon, pomegranate, crosnes. The crunchy puffs were like chicharrones. Tasty dish, if somewhat obscured by the flashless photography.

Pumpkin caviar!

To go on this Vacherin blini. The texture was like that of a Chinese pan fried dumpling, but inside it was mildly cheesy.

A delicious pre dessert consisting of a soft meringue and that other thing. It was yummy.

Kuri Squash Beignet. Rice Sorbet, Carmel, Cinnamon. Nice fancy donut balls and accompaniments.

Petite Fours. Gels, little macarons, and some other pastry.

Pumpkin spice cake to go. A nice touch!

Overall, we had a great time. Our wine was fabulous. The atmosphere is wonderful, the staff warm, and the food extremely interesting. It’s a highly intellectual cuisine, playing off a lot of forms and textures. Nothing clashed or failed, but sometimes the dishes didn’t seem fully integrated. Mostly it was all those textures and separate elements. It was hard to see exactly how they combined. The flavors err on the subtle, which made them compliment extremely well with the Burgundy. I really want to go back — although I’m not thrilled at the idea of autodialing and having little choice about date!

And what’s with grandma’s old china? 🙂

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