Review: In the heart of Camélia, the center of the Arts District redefines the Los Angeles bistro

In the darkest days of early 2021, when Courtney Kaplan and Charles Namba began to believe that the pandemic would force the closure of Tsubaki, their trendy izakaya in Echo Park, the couple distracted themselves with some hopeful fantasies: If this place closed and they You could eventually open another restaurant, what would you want to create?

The idea was a bistro with an immersive atmosphere, serving French dishes with Japanese flavors. It had been the original plan for Tsubaki, before they moved on to Namba's repertoire of raw, steamed, fried and grilled dishes, combined equally with Kaplan's extraordinary sake program, a direction better suited to the small venues of the restaurant.

Four years later, Tsubaki and its sake bar next door, Ototo, are thankfully still with us, two community touchstones that I take visitors to to showcase the greatness of Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, five miles away, Kaplan and Namba are lately immersed in the task of bringing their long-incubating bistro to life. In July, they introduced Camélia to the Arts District, in the century-old building, once a National Biscuit Co. factory, that housed Church & State for more than a decade. The scope of the space, much larger than either of their Echo Park businesses, gives Namba and Kaplan the room to expand their ambitions, to showcase their individual expertise while weaving their talents (and two kitchens) more intricately than they thought. They had tried before.

An endeavor of this complex usually takes a few months to crystallize. As 2025 begins, Camélia is right where it needs to be: the restaurant finds new meaning in the bistro genre: a lush evening framed around food, driven by honed technique, that is also a sophisticated exploration of identity.

Camélia aioli garni with market vegetables highlights seasonal products, dressed with carrot vinaigrette.

(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)

It's heartening, after the space sat dormant for a couple of years, to see crowds gathering once again in the Industrial Street courtyard, a block from the busy 7th Street corner where Yess resides.

The remodeling of Camélia's interior erases the memories of the former tenants. Frosted hanging fixtures, wicker chairs, plenty of knotty wood paneling to soften the wide pipes running overhead, red leather booths and pale green banquettes create an open, mid-century modern feel. Beyond the smoky caramel lighting that envelops diners at night, there is little in sight that evokes the clichés of a “bistro,” a term that has been extended to endless interpretations anyway.

So what is the definition of work at Camélia? Luxurious purple yam blinis topped with feathery Dungeness crab and the hint of gently saline ikura. Steamed clams in donabe in a broth enriched with lobster butter. A croque-madame constructed from soft, springy shokupan. Beef cheeks braised in red wine and unmistakably spread with freshly grated wasabi root. To drink: an aperitif of anise-scented pastis or a Suntory whiskey highball? Half a bottle of Beaujolais with a couple of years of aging? Seasonal sakes scheduled for release in the fall? A splash of each?

Camélia's “Decibel martini,” with shochu, Japanese vodka, French vermouths, plum wine, lychee, absinthe and bitters, is inspired by the lychee martini at Decibel sake bar in New York.

(Rebecca Peloquín/Rebecca Peloquín)

This precise graft of French and Japanese cultures is the sum of the professional and personal lives of its owners. Namba grew up in Los Angeles. His first cooking job was at a pizzeria in Beverly Hills. However, he didn't start taking cooking seriously until he moved to New York and got a job at En Japanese Brasserie, a restaurant serving sushi, noodles, and salads. There he met Kaplan, who had studied Japanese at Columbia University in New York and was living in Tokyo as a student. The next stop on his career: David and Karen Waltuck's lauded French Chanterelle temple in Tribeca. For her: Decibel, one of the most important sake bars in the country.

When they moved to Los Angeles, Namba landed at Bouchon in Beverly Hills and Kaplan worked as a sommelier at Bestia before opening Tsubaki in 2017. In a recent interview, Kaplan mentioned that the Japanese-French synthesis, already so organic in his experiences, was They would bond even more during their travels. He mentioned a neighborhood bistro near Namba's parents' home in Kobe, Japan, that they frequent, and also French restaurants in Tokyo and Parisian bistronomy centers where they've tried clever dishes that could bridge the 6,000-mile distance between the two. cities.

The croque-madame is filled with katsu ham, Gruyere and Mornay sauce, between slices of soft, bouncy milk bread.

(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)

In the United States, the fusion of Japanese and French cuisines can often seem forced, far-fetched, or ridiculous. Kaplan and Namba come to the challenge experienced and prepared, and it shows.

Few beverage professionals in the country have Kaplan's fluidity and gift for storytelling on two topics as vast as wine and sake. Angelenos who have interacted with her before at Tsubaki or Ototo know her charming charm: She can sidle up to a table almost shyly and modestly. But once she's convinced your predilections, perhaps by asking you what flavors you like in other drinks, you'll soon be drinking something. explicit (something herbal, original or effervescent) that could reconfigure your understanding of sake.

Camélia gives Kaplan the opportunity to update his wine knowledge. Their list condenses a tour of France into classic styles and promising producers; is the kind of document that encourages a conversation with Kaplan or one of his friendly and committed employees. That said, the first page always includes some of his current, often seasonal, obsessions with wine and sake, offered in full bottles and half bottles, with some language (“Did someone say red wine in sake form?” ) that takes you into his vision of the world.

Whatever your drinking interests, come with a thirst to quench. “Dryuary” watchers might lean toward bar leader Kevin Nguyen's mocktails, including a taut faux Negroni riff with pomegranate and bitter orange.

As for the kitchen: Namba and his team hand-sew two plates like master tailors.

Each dish feels considered in its own context. In many cases, Namba takes a French staple and swaps out one critical element for another. Ginger replaces peppercorns with cut spices in brandy sauce over a reddish New York stripe. The springy, fluffy qualities of the milk bread lighten the Gruyère and Mornay sauce that top the croque-monsieur (though it's still calorie-dense enough to share even among four people). Dijon mustard commonly flavors buttery sauces that accompany roast chicken. Namba, on the other hand, tempers the seaweed in cream; its oceanic umami achieves the same desired effect to highlight and counteract the bird's simplicity.

Sometimes he introduces an element that adds hidden depths, for example, miso butter in a thyme-scented sweet potato gratin. Or rely on your own imagination, as with a poetic dish of scallops and oyster mushrooms smothered in dashi cream and lime and topped with a frothy chestnut-date purée. The flavors are bright, earthy, sweet and nutty.

Other dishes are what they are, with few blurred lines. A Japanese technique called warayaki, in which meats or fish are cooked over burnt hay to perfume them with fire, produces a beautiful starter of sliced ​​bonito combined with myoga, drizzled with sudachi and finished with miso and hazelnut dressing. A thick American-style burger made with dry-aged beef, served with a cone full of crispy fries, it's simply a great handful of burgers.

Loup de mer stuffed with sage with arima sansho, oroshi ponzu and komatsuna leaves.

(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)

There are certainly works in progress. Because Tsubaki's salads always have amazing layers of flavor, I expect more from Camélia's combination of seasonally changing greens with fruits, nuts and cheese, which still don't evoke much emotion. Parker House Black Sesame Walnut Rolls tend to come out dry, an unfortunate way to start dinner. I'm still trying to fall in love with the $70 duck fries that feed two. It's covered in appropriate, smart-sounding things like cilantro-yuzu shichimi and béarnaise, and it always comes off a little flat. I know Namba and his team can adjust their frequency levels to get more treble and rumble.

If you rushed to Camélia, say, in August while the restaurant was still setting up, I will now bring to your table one of Namba's latest creations, to demonstrate its rapid evolution: koshihikari rice cooked risotto-style with dashi. , then intensified with a wild compound butter that includes uni, pulverized katsuobushi, lobster coral, soy sauce and, for a Gallic twist, espelette. The dish arrives topped with lemon-grilled Monterey Bay squid and topped with chopped shiso and mint. Imagine l'Ami Jean's famous riz au lait rendered as chawanmushi from a parallel universe.

Is a dish identified as “risotto” colored too far outside the bistro lines? When a chef touches the sublime, labels mean nothing. We know it in Los Angeles. Even better, Kaplan is waiting with a kindred spirit, Junmai Daiginjo, by the glass, creamy and bright, to match Namba's efforts texture for texture.

(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)