Bestia

August 6, 2018
In this excellent debut, the husband-and-wife chefs/owners of L.A. restaurant Bestia share their personal story and provide recipes for many of their menu dishes. The opening chapter of pantry items runs over 40 pages and is a treasury of pickles, preserves, vinaigrettes, sauces and stocks. These “unromantic fundamentals,” prove their worth in starters like sunchoke soup with pickled fresno chiles, and entrees like grilled rib eye with apple balsamic-black butter sauce, and blood orange honey syrup in a crème fraiche panna cotta. Embracing a nose to tail philosophy, the restaurant staff works through 440 pounds of pig every week, and pork turns up in a spicy Calabrian sausage called ’nduja, in pasta options like tortellini di mortadella, and even in a cocktail (pork fat is the key to the chef’s old fashioned, which twists the traditional recipe by using a smoked pork–infused bourbon). With support from Suter, a James Beard Award–winning food journalist, and photos by lifestyle and food photographer Nicole Franzen, the restaurant’s rustic charms come to life in this sweet and savory collection.

November 15, 2018

Despite its hard-to-find location in Los Angeles, Bestia restaurant was a hit from the start and continues to be a coveted reservation. Husband-wife owners Menashe and Genevieve Gergis; he is the head chef, she is the pastry chef, together with food journalist Lesley Suter, have a produced an attractive book highlighting their full-flavored, Italian-based food. Like many restaurant books, this one assumes a fair bit of culinary knowledge, with large sections on charcuterie and pickling, as well as recipes that call for a dehydrator as well as access to specialized ingredients. But the dedicated cook looking to replicate the Bestia experience will be rewarded with recipes such as scallop crudo with citrus and dried olives, pici with saffron lamb ragu, and slow-roasted suckling pig. Among the most intriguing recipes are starters; several of the main dishes utilize a grill, which may be of limited use to some readers, but the pizza recipes instruct on using a home oven and a large section on desserts offers many tips for success. VERDICT A beautiful Bestia souvenir and a workable title for ambitious home cooks.--Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI

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