The Chinese restaurant boom that finds 626 Night Market able to fill an entire Enormodome with eager eaters and L.A.’s bloggerati and chefs charting weekend pilgrimages to Monterey Park is paving the way for a new Downtown gastropub that promises a marriage of Beijing street food with a bar scene. Brigham Yen reports that owners Andrew Wong and Andrew Chiu of El Guapo Group are planning Peking Tavern on Spring Street, with a vibe inspired by the Chinese capital’s alleys and a Hollywood-ized Chinatown spirit (in other words, Charlie Chan-alert!), coming just under the forthcoming Terroni sequel. The restaurant, expected in spring of 2013, already offers a peek at what it might be serving food on following a few test kitchen runs.
So far, Peking Tavern plans to serve such stuffs as beef rolls, scallion pancakes, jiaozi dumplings, and pot stickers, along with hand-stretched noodles in a spicy beef soup and za jiang mein pork noodles, for which they’re seeking a good English translation. The restaurateurs will then turn their attentions to opening a Downtown place called The Fickle this winter.
Hopefully, Peking Tavern fulfills its high potential, bringing strong Chinese cuisine to a central street and injecting some new porky flavors into the thick of all these new pig-pushing gastro-pubs, nailing the kind of cross-cultural self-exam that’s often done the best in Los Angeles.
Downtown LA 8th & Spring on Fire: Peking Tavern Coming Soon to Join Terroni and Crane [BY]
