James Republic soft-opens in Long Beach this week, with a grand-opening expected next Tuesday. Chef Dean James Max, who runs DJM restaurant consulting, is the owner here, bringing Long Beach a place based on sustainable practices and local product on a changing menu of modern California coastal cuisine bearing conscious seafood catches and ranch-raised meats, heirloom vegetables, and craft beer and cocktails.
Starters involve a mostly plant-based selection of dishes like beet and pistachio gazpacho, roasted local dates with smoked bacon and goat cheese, and spring pea salad with parma, burrata, and pea tendril mint puree, along with wahoo poke and “beach house” chicken soup. Dinner entrees are all priced under $20 and include farro fried rice with beef short ribs, wahoo, farm egg, arugula, and cashew butter, as well as a nine-dollar grass-fed burger, braised lamb shoulder with piquillos, farm cheese cavatelli with crispy sweetbreads, and buttermilk fried chicken with corn pudding. Check out the full menus online.
James Republic, 500 East 1st St. Long Beach; 954-300-9447.
