APL Restaurant opened its nouveau-steakhouse operation only three months ago, but Adam Perry Lang’s meticulously trimmed steaks and his massive dry-aging cellar have already become the stuff of L.A. legend. Today, the celebrity chef unveiled yet another piece of the APL puzzle, and if opening day is any indication, walk-up window APL Hole in the Wall is on track to generate just as much—if not more—buzz than its full-service counterpart. It is, after all, the only place you can find Perry Lang’s $6 chili dogs, and they’re topped with hand-cut prime beef chuck.
The service slid open its window today, just to the left of the restaurant’s entrance. APL Hole in the Wall, serving from Wednesday to Sunday, offers a handful of gourmet sandwiches, dogs and sodas for the lunch, tourist and local-gourmand crowd just off Hollywood and Vine. The menu is brief, the concept, simple: great, high-quality food made with great, high-quality meat—prepared fresh, quickly and without any fuss. As of now, there are only four available food items, including not one but two takes on a chili dog, plus a Texas toast-inspired beef “taco,” and a heaving, hearty $50 steak sandwich you already know you’re going to order—just give in.
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
The Double Beef Chili Dog, at $6, tops a jumbo all-beef hot dog with New Mexican hatch-chile chili that’s made with hand-cut prime beef chuck, then tops all of that with sweet onions, cheddar and pickled jalapeño, while the Dry-Aged Beef Chili Dog, at $12, slathers a jumbo all-beef dog with aged-beef ancho-chile chili that's packed with aged beef before it's all sprinkled with that trio of onions, cheddar and pickled jalapeños.
Then there’s the Hot Shot, at $9, which folds house-cured smoked beef, house pickle salad and melty American cheese between a thick slice of toast, and for the really hungry—or maybe a group of four—there’s the Serious BBQ Sandwich, at $50 a pop. This hulking meal is what lunch dreams and food comas are made of: pit-cooked shaved prime New York strip steak, the house pickle salad, sweet onions and freshly grated horseradish. Sounds good? Get there fast, as they’ll only be making 10 of these per day.
APL Hole in the Wall isn’t just the realization of Perry Lang’s chili-dog infatuation; it also helps serve a purpose he’s been feeling for years. Through both APL Restaurant and the new walk-up window, the chef employs those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
“I think that there is a tremendous opportunity to enrich people’s lives, make people feel like they have purpose and really explore,” he told Time Out earlier this year. “Where there’s a ‘deficiency’ in one sense, it means it’s an augmentation of a complete other set of senses.” As such, he’s tapped Marcus Lewis—one of Perry Lang’s longest West Coast employees and a cook proficient in sign language—and Zia Hughes, who is hard of hearing, to run the new operation.
It’s hard to feel anything but good will—OK, maybe anything other than good will and hunger—at the new spot.
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
The Serious BBQ Sandwich arrives in its own APL-branded bindle.
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
APL Hole in the Wall is now open at 1680 Vine St, with hours of 11:30am to 3pm Wednesday to Sunday.