More details have landed on John Rivera Sedlar’s Playa via the forces who run Test Kitchen. This Thursday night, Playa will hold an invite-only friends and family dinner, followed by a grand-opening for the public this Friday on Beverly Blvd. The press release gives us a fuller picture of the food, which will be “small plate interpretations of iconic Latin foods,” plus genre-twisting cocktails by Julian Cox and a few international influences. While the full menu will be previewed at The Test Kitchen dinner, a few of the dishes leaked thus far include maize cakes with farmer’s market fillings, which could run the gamut from pork belly confit with chile-lime jicama, mango pickle, and masala, with chana crisp and raita espuma (Sedlar previewed a simpler version of this sort of Indian-squared flavor at East L.A. Meets Napa) to burrata with salsa de semilla and arugula. What else?
There will also be a French-influenced tamale with wild mushroom duxelles, filet mignon, and chipotle bearnaise, plus duck confit with white rice jus, Fresno chiles, chives, micro cilantro, and baby vegetable pickles, along with grilled ocotpus with palm hearts, scallions, oven dried cherry tomatoes, and dried onion, and finally, a “flora y terra” for dessert made of vanilla cake with candied chilis, piquillos, cava consomme, strawberries, and strawberry-anise sorbet. There are some preview plywood shots on the restaurant’s Facebook, with all to be revealed on Friday.
Playa, 7360 Beverly Blvd. West Hollywood.
