Before Jordan Kahn’s unearthly project Vespertine took up residence in the four-story building at 3599 Hayden Ave. in Culver City, architect Eric Owen Moss simply called his structure “Waffle.” No nickname could be more apt: Its form resembles several squared-off Eggos dipped in hot chicken spices and built into a wobbly fort. From a certain angle its heaving walls also suggest a squat beast that has recently gobbled breakfast. Even now, empty of guests, the restaurant somehow looks full.
Still, having been to the restaurant previously, I recognized ever-evolving variations on some of Kahn’s visual wonders: a cookie of burnt onion, blackcurrant and flowers in a vessel shaped like an obelisk with its point chopped off; a dish whose edible surface was as black and craggy as asphalt, hiding Hokkaido scallops. Preserved bougainvillea petals glowed in their translucence. Discs of almond buttercream revolved around a bowl like planets circling in their own lonely orbits.
I respect Kahn and the purity of his aims, but in the building I’ve never quite relaxed into enjoyment.Today, in the center of a devastating pandemic, Vespertine’s website still describes its ambitions as “a gastronomical experience seeking to disrupt the course of the modern restaurant.” The novel coronavirus has accomplished this goal more swiftly and terribly than any of us could have imagined.to keep his staff employed.
I hold up a sealed plastic bag full of shrimp, potatoes and hunks of sausage and corn on the cob. “Is this Frogmore stew?” I ask aloud through a fog of memory. Andrea looks at me questioningly. We flip through the menu’s detailed explainer cards . Sure enough, Kahn knows the dish — also called Lowcountry boil, the ingredients simmered in beer and spices and shrimp stock — by its micro-regional name of Frogmore stew as well.
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