Duck into Bar Etoile along Western Avenue and find a gently lit wood-paneled dining room that buzzes, starting from a zinc counter encircling the center of the room. To the sides, packed tables toast to zingy glasses of Melon de Bourgogne while taking careful spoonfuls of Alpine-style cheese tarts fashioned into savory pie slices. Which Parisian arrondissement is this? Oh, it's Melrose Hill, a Los Angeles neighborhood experiencing increasingly accelerating development with the openings of Corridor 109, Chainsaw, and Little Fish in recent months.
"LA's so casual," Sonenshein says. "This is still a casual spot in a lot of ways - you can wear jeans and come in for lunch and whatever - but I think we're treating service really like a craft. We have felt how special it feels as the diner. And I think we started to see this as an opportunity for ourselves."