Five things to know about Adam Perry Lang’s APL steakhouse

Sitting pretty at the nexus of Hollywood and Vine, Adam Perry Lang’s APL may be one of the most anticipated openings of the spring—this chef’s beef ribs have been known to form lines that wrap around the block, after all—but there’s more to this steakhouse than smoked meats and its center-of-Hollywood positioning. Here’s what to expect from the grilling expert who’s been slinging meat everywhere from Jimmy Kimmel’s L.A. backlot to London.

The concept

Imagine a steakhouse built on the simplicity of the 19th and 20th centuries; we’re not talking about the recipes, per se—though Perry Lang’s amassed enough of those to last a lifetime, given his collection of 1,000 cookbooks. We’re talking an era of cooking that capitalized on the quality of the meat itself, with very minimal intervention. 

“They were so successful doing so much with so little at their disposal,” he says. “I’m not saying the food was better then than now, but they were able to bring out what is my kind of homage, and that is an ode to simplicity. I find great inspiration by going back to a time when we had less to work with and we had to maximize more; what ends up happening is by shifting the language around and understanding and reading a different perspective, it frees you up to seeing new things that were done in old ways.”

So how does this translate to APL? A focus on beef, all butchered on-site, including his signature smoked beef ribs served simply—the hallmark of Perry Lang’s concentration on paring down to focus on the basics done well. There will be a massive dry-aging program, plus seafood, spotlights on Southern California’s incredible access to produce, and bistro-leaning fare; for all the pit smoking, the French-trained chef who worked under Daniel Boulud hasn’t forgotten his roots.

The design

Given Perry Lang’s inspiration from antiques, it should come as no surprise that his restaurant’s décor will also harken back to earlier eras. While the historic Taft Building renovation is giving the restaurant a clean, modern slate, a number of Perry Lang’s vintage pieces will be scattered throughout. In the atrium, you’ll mostly likely spot his 400-pound, 140-year-old maple butcher block, which will most likely be sitting under a 1920s Art Deco chandelier that sports 34 separate light bulbs. The wooden ’20s bar is recreated and rebuilt, and some of the floors are black-and-white tiled, evoking the bygone era.

Of course not everything is decades—if not centuries—old: Large bulb lights yelling "MEAT" and "EAT" from Jimmy Kimmel’s Austin set will most likely also be on display. Expect a classic blend of Old Hollywood, modern sensibilities and a turn-of-the-century butcher shop, if you can picture it.

The beverage program

There’s a reason whiskey and steak go together, beyond the complementary flavors of smoky and rich. Acting as a palate cleanser, whiskey helps cut the fattiness of red meat—and all of that cheese in Perry Lang’s pommes aligot, which you’ve also got headed your way at APL. While the APL team will be slicing food’s richness in the kitchen (hello, house-made pickles), the beverage program is designed to help achieve this by the glass. Expect a broad menu of whiskey, plus a program that features special releases and, eventually, APL’s own barrels for aging. They’ll have all other spirits as well, but whiskey will be the focus.

“[Adam] really challenged me early on, saying, ‘What’s the intention behind this? Why are you doing this?’” says beverage director Jonathan Michael McClune. “[I’ve been] thinking about if this person in 1925 had the accessibility to these ingredients, what would they do with them? Would they go crazy or still be restrained and clean?” Look for a number of classics and classics-inspired cocktails, as well as a few drinks with nods to the neighborhood and modern interpretation. On the wine front, sommelier Evelyn Goreshnik will serve as wine manager and, as Perry Lang notes, her knowledge of wine is elevating the entire restaurant.

The knife program

You go to a steakhouse, you expect a steak knife—what you don’t expect is a steak knife hand-forged by the chef-owner, because most chef-owners are not also blacksmiths by hobby. Perry Lang, however, began metalwork on a lark roughly five years ago, renting his Lawndale BBQ warehouse primarily as his forging workshop. When he’s not recipe testing or thumbing through his cookbooks, you can find him here, toiling through this extremely physical labor of love. Each knife is cut from one piece of steel, be it Damascus, Swedish AEB-L, or any other alloy-precise metal that rates high on the Rockwell (hardness) scale and strikes his fancy. 

The strength is key, as a high-Rockwell knife is going to hold its edge, so the side isn’t going to roll. Perry Lang’s been cutting, hammering and hardening blades for months in advance of APL’s opening, trying to perfect a steak knife that wears slowly, cuts meticulously, is easy to maintain, looks great and above all feels comfortable to the guest.

GLAD and the walk-up window

Behind the smoked beef ribs, the bistro cuisine, the decadence of a rare pour of whiskey is a handful of practices centered on hospitality and inclusiveness. It isn’t enough for Adam Perry Lang to open his first L.A. restaurant; he wants to do it in a way that will help the community, and he’s working with nonprofit Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness (GLAD) to make it happen. The restaurant is working with the agency to help employ those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

“I think that there is a tremendous opportunity to enrich people’s lives, make people feel like they have purpose and really explore,” says Perry Lang. “Where there’s a ‘deficiency’ in one sense, it means it’s an augmentation of a complete other set of senses.”

One of APL’s chief integrations of GLAD can be found at the walk-up window, a 62-square-foot room that used to serve as a single-chair barbershop. This streamlined operation will sling handheld items with a more casual bent than what you’ll find in the steakhouse, and only need three employees at a given time: one to take your order in line, a GLAD participant, and Marcus Lewis, one of Perry Lang’s longest West Coast employees and a cook who just so happens to sign.

Among the walk-up’s grab-and-go offerings is the APL Texas Toast Taco, stuffed with sliced beef ribs, house pickles and a sprinkling of fresh herbs:

He’s also looking to serve a high-quality, low-priced barbecue sandwich; a high-quality, high-priced barbecue sandwich that’s outrageous and piled-high and decadent; and even a hot dog topped with house chili made with hand-cut chuck and sirloin, and whole-pod guajillo purée: “No tomatoes, no sludge,” he promises. “It’s going to be insane.”

APL is set to open in May at 1680 Vine St.