It’s possible that Hollywood’s newest scene stealer is, in fact, a literal hunk of meat. Tonight, the highly anticipated APL Restaurant by pitmaster and all-around meat marvel Adam Perry Lang opens at Hollywood and Vine, serving old-school-inspired steakhouse fare with new-school flourish.
Sitting pretty on the ground floor of Hollywood’s historic Taft Building, the 143-seat space maintains the trappings of a traditional steakhouse—big leather booths, brass accents, antique mirrors and the occasional vintage scale, chandelier or woodblock—but keeps things fresh with modern art, and even a collection of custom steak knives hand-forged by chef himself. (Those, by the way, will cost you $950.01, should you decide to steal one—priced intentionally to hit you with a felony charge.) Below, there’s not only a private lounge area but a 1,000-square-foot dry-aging cellar packed with prime cuts—some of which have been aging since early January.
Photograph: Courtesy APL Restaurant/Josh Telles
That doesn’t just mean Perry Lang will be focused solely on meat; there are fresh pastas to be had, and seasonal seafood, bowls of French onion soup and colorful plates of burrata with stone fruit.
Drawing upon his thousand-plus collection of cookbooks and bevy of butchery antiques, Adam Perry Lang is looking to the past to inform everything he believes the modern steakhouse should be: sleek, overly hospitable, efficient, minimalist, charming. Once you see and taste the finished product, it’s hard to argue with him.
“I find great inspiration by going back to a time when we had less to work with and we had to maximize more,” the chef told us earlier this year. “What ends up happening is by shifting the language around and understanding and reading a different perspective, it frees you up to seeing new things that were done in old ways.”
And there’s more to come from this concept: Soon there’ll be a walk-up window, where you’ll be able to snag an APL “taco” during the daytime: tender sliced beef rib topped with bright pickled vegetables, all between a single slice of Texas Toast. Many of the faces you’ll see behind that counter will be handing you those tacos with a smile and perhaps some signing; the chef teamed up with Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness (GLAD) to help employ those who are deaf or hard of hearing—a dream Perry Lang has been working toward for years. (You can find more about that in a previous interview, right over here.)
Hungry yet? Here’s the full APL menu; when you visit, wear an outfit with some give, for best results.
APL opens tonight at 1680 Vine St, open from 5:30 to 11pm daily.