At the start of the summer, you read about Louis Kim, the former Four Seasons chef who left Seoul’s affluent Chungdam neighborhood for Beverly Hills in order to open Erbe Matte in the former Tiger Sushi space. We see the restaurant taking shape on Canon, with recently erected signage, while the restaurant’s PR arm, Greg Rogers, sends word that this Italian restaurant with Korean influences will open in mid-October with an herb-based bar program designed by Jones Hollywood’s Eric Tecoscky. What about those crazy herbs?
With the sub-title “Hand-crafted food and drink,” Erbe Matte is not about yerba mate as we once suspected, but “crazy herbs,” though not the kind that make Miley Cyrus go all goofy. Kim’s lunch and dinner menus will be mid-price modern Italian, while the herbs used in his dishes will be Korean, resulting in a new flavor of Korean-influenced Cali cuisine that sounds fairly consistent with L.A.’s recent haute Asian boom.
The restaurant, designed by David Chun Studio, opens up the sweltering space to include both indoor and outdoor dining. So far, it sounds like it has a much more imaginative, impassioned edge than the short-lived, wanna-be hangout Tiger Sushi. We’ll find out when Erbe Matte opens in mid-October. In the meantime, keep your eyes glued to a currently stagnant website.
Erbe Matte, 340 N. Canon Dr. Beverly Hills. 213-388-5311.
