Sean Brock, the nationally renowned chef behind Husk (which first opened its doors in Charleston and now has locations in Nashville and Savannah) will open his first restaurant on the West Coast this weekend—and it happens to right in the heart of West Hollywood. This Sunday, August 31, the James Beard Award winner and Chef’s Table star will debut Darling, a California-style live-fire cooking restaurant and hi-fi listening lounge that represents a marked conceptual departure from Brock’s previous projects, which have focused on Southern cuisine and preserving Appalachian culinary traditions.
After a summer of ICE raids, seemingly endless closures and relatively few buzzy openings, Darling could be the breath of fresh air the L.A. dining scene needs as fall begins—at least according to the calendar—and we near the end of the year. The Robertson Boulevard restaurant takes over and incorporates design elements from the previous inhabitant, Soulmate, a scene-y Spanish-Mediterranean dining destination. Similar to Brian Dunsmoor’s eponymously named Dunsmoor in Echo Park, Brock plans to use a custom-made wood-burning grill to cook all of the restaurant’s produce, seafood and meats, albeit without the distinctly Southern culinary slant.
If all goes according to plan, the 12-dish menu will change in its entirety on a monthly basis, with the opening menu featuring dishes like venison tartare with buckwheat and zucchini cornichons, koshihikari rice with grilled abalone and celtuce stew and wood-grilled quail from Wolfe Ranch, a small-scale Northern California operation that also supplies other L.A. fine dining destinations, including the Arts District’s Kato and Vespertine in Culver City. Like Dunsmoor, Darling will also offer a small daily allotment of 24 dry-aged steak burgers, which will only available until sold out.
Alongside Brock in the kitchen will be chef de cuisine Ben Norton, who also worked with the rural Virginia native at Husk Nashville and McCrady’s in Charleston, one of Brock’s other restaurants. On the drinks side of the equation, Brock and his partners have managed to lure over notable L.A. bar director Jason Lee, who previously oversaw the beverage program at Baroo and has also contributed to the beverage programs at Pijja Palace, n/soto and the original Kali.
To complement Darling’s ever-changing monthly menu, Lee plans to wipe the slate clean every month and offer entirely new drinks that utilize peak season, locally sourced ingredients, including a few non-alcoholic options. Expect riffs on the martini, the negroni, the margarita, milk punch and more. The opening menu includes ten cocktails, including two zero-proof options. Highlights include the Eggplant, which draws inspiration from a piña colada and Seaweeds, a gin- and vodka-based creation incorporating cacao butter, seaweed and genepi liqueur.
Where Darling has completely diverged from its predecessor is with its hi-fi listening lounge, which takes over the former patio space and features a retractable canopy for the chillier nights ahead. The custom-made sound system was designed in collaboration with local DJ and sound designer MAXV, who built seven custom speakers and incorporated a vintage Tannoy, an Accuphase amplifier and Japanese cartridges. For an entirely different reason unrelated to Brock’s culinary prowess, the restaurant and lounge is sure to attract audiophiles from far and wide. Nightly music programming is slated to be exclusively vinyl and curated by “a roster of seasoned DJs,” per Darling’s press release.
Multiple artworks by Mose Tolliver, Peter Tomka, and Santiago Quesnel dot the indoor-outdoor space, but the focal point of the main dining room is undoubtedly Legal Tender, a 23-foot work by Mexican American artist Narsiso Martinez, which waspainted on flattened produce boxes and features modern agricultural scenes and a central portrait of an undocumented farmworker. Previously, the piece was displayed at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center.
Darling is located at 631 N Robertson Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069 and will be open Wed–Sun 5:30–10pm. Reservations are available on Resy.