First, find perfect ingredients. Then, find ways to help them be even more perfect.

It’s always funny to us when we hear about how so many restaurants have started talking about serving fresh, locally grown ingredients. And when we read industry magazines talking about how it’s the “hot trend.”

 

This is how restaurants have worked for centuries – cooking with the best foods that could be found nearby. Now, restaurants are finally rediscovering what they should have remembered all along.

 

Fresh is better. Locally grown is better. We call it “intensely seasonal” cooking; using ingredients that aren’t just fresh, but at their absolute peak of flavor. That’s why we drive a few miles from the restaurant to Chino Farms, where we get most of our produce. We go almost every day, because sometimes something isn’t quite at peak flavor yet. Another day or two in the ground and it’ll be perfect.

 

Freshness isn’t just important with fruits and vegetables…it’s important with everything we cook. When halibut is in season, from about May to October, we insist that it’s flown down from Alaska each day, instead of trucked down from L.A. (Just an extra day or two makes a big difference.)

 

It’s comes down to a simple philosophy.

 

Seasonality is a good thing. And some foods just aren’t supposed to be available all year-round.

 

Which is why they taste so good, when you can get them.