What happens when one of the city’s preeminent fine-dining chefs launches a casual operation out of a Downtown hotel? We’re about to find out, because Michael Cimarusti’s Best Girl, on the ground floor of Ace Hotel, opened this morning. The Providence and Connie & Ted’s chef has been working quietly for the last few months to conceptualize his newest restaurant, a seasonal ode to L.A.’s multiculturalism, and one that appears to offer a little something for everyone.
The new spot opened for breakfast suddenly and with little fanfare in the former space of L.A. Chapter, which was still serving as recently as yesterday. Now, with Cimarusti at the helm, the Ace’s dining is transforming into something a bit more adventurous, while still maintaining a bright and laid-back atmosphere.
As far as decor’s concerned, nothing is really changing; the checkered floor and black-and-white etched tiles will still frame your meal, but instead of L.A. Chapter’s safer menu of chicken clubs and kale salads you’ll now find Cimarusti and chef de cuisine Adam Walker’s intriguing additions, often with an international bent: burgers receive a smear of umeboshi (Japanese plum) mayonnaise; the porterhouse for two comes not with steakhouse sides but house-made cream, salsas and corn tortillas.
Whether at breakfast, lunch, dinner or brunch, Best Girl’s menus skew more toward meat and veg, but this is still a Cimarusti operation, after all, which means there will be seafood: baked clams with herb butter and breadcrumbs, oysters on the half shell, raw clams, jumbo lump crab cake, a frisée salad with smoked black cod and mustard vinaigrette, and even a crudo of the day with avocado, seaweed, jalapeño and tortilla.
Pastry chef and Cimarusti's wife Crisi Echiverri—who's also a consulting partner, along with Cimarusti and front-of-house familiar face Donato Poto—will be heading up a dessert program that’s also internationally inspired, drawing upon her Southern and Filipino heritage to offer sweets such as the coconut pandan tapioca with calamansi, tropical fruit and macadamia crunch, and the bourbon sticky toffee pudding with crème fraîche ice cream and blackberry compote.
A few of L.A. Chapter’s items, such as the breakfast scramble with merguez and pistachio hummus, will remain while the restaurant transitions entirely to Cimarusti’s L.A.-inspired menu. The name itself is also a nod to the city, and specifically the building’s history: the Ace overhauled the home of former film powerhouse United Artists, a studio founded by a handful of Hollywood A-listers including Mary Pickford, star of the 1927 film My Best Girl—the namesake of the new restaurant.
Here’s a bit more of what you can expect:
Best Girl is now open at 927 S. Broadway, within the Ace Hotel Downtown, serving from 7am to 11pm Sunday through Thursday, and 7am to midnight on Friday and Saturday.