This upscale live-fire restaurant and hi-fi lounge in West Hollywood comes from Sean Brock, the Southern chef behind award-winning Husk (Nashville, Charleston and Savannah). Located in the old Soulmate space, Darling offers a different seasonally inspired menu every month and a platonic ideal burger only available in limited quantities. Not every dish during my two visits in September were successful, but the ambition and vision were clearly there. The seasonal cocktail menu by Baroo alum Jason Lee included interesting drinks incorporating eggplant, bonny melon and seaweed—and while Lee also has plans to turn over the entire drink menu every month, I’m confident that drinks and dinner at Darling has the potential to delight and possibly even wow veteran diners.
Unfortunately, as with the early days of Curtis Stone’s now-closed Maude in Beverly Hills, it’s impossible for me to comprehensively assess a restaurant that keeps changing its menu. Then again, depending on what kind of diner you are, that’s just part of the fun. With guest DJs and enormous speakers, the adjacent hi-fi lounge is also an audiophile‘s dream and more conducive to a drop-in meal—but if Darling intends to become an enduring fixture of L.A.’s increasingly competitive upscale dining landscape, it’s going to need a little more overall cohesion.