It’s been a long time coming, but Ria Barbosa finally has a brick-and-mortar restaurant of her own. The former Paramount Coffee Project chef opens Petite Peso today, a casual Filipino rice bowl operation slinging adobo, kare kare and lumpia out of 300-or-so square feet in the heart of Downtown’s jewelry district.
The menu is tight but still manages to run the gamut of familiar hits, plus adds a more L.A.-elusive dish, siopao, the Filipino take on Cantonese stuffed steamed buns; at Petite Peso, Barbosa’s filling hers with chicken sisig.
And while the native Angeleno is drawing on her own upbringing and family recipes, the Sqirl vet with a pastry and fine dining background is giving us a few updated takes on stalwarts: There’s a French-dip–inspired adobo sandwich, for instance, which involves an adobo jus and a layer of crispy chicken skin, plus a vegan version of her lumpia made with Impossible Foods “meat.”
“I love turning flavors that I grew up eating into something completely different-looking from the original,” Barbosa previously told Time Out. “It’s a form of playing—but I will say the more I do it, the more I want to stay true to the original because I don’t want to make it pretentious.”
For those of us with a sweet tooth, the chef’s new restaurant also sells fresh, house-made Filipino pastry and bread, including pan de sal rolls, strawberry mamón cake, ensaymada topped with slivers of egg yolk, and shortbread-style polvoron cookies, all available à la carte or as part of a large pastry box for $25. To get these or any of Petite Peso’s salads, rice bowls, steamed buns or lumpia, you can order online for pickup or delivery, or call the shop via its easy-to-remember number: 209-GET-PESO.
The new spot is picking up where one of L.A.’s most lauded Filipino restaurants left off, filling the literal space of Charles Olalia’s now-shuttered RiceBar, but while carrying its own ethos: “stressing quality, cleanliness, service, resilience.”
Check out the menu, below, along with a few photos of what you can expect at Petite Peso.
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Petite Peso is now open at 419 W 7th St in DTLA, with hours of 11am to 10pm daily.
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