Having Words With Bryan Ogden Chef-Owner, Apple, Los AngelesHaving Words With Bryan Ogden Chef-Owner, Apple, Los Angeles

Lisa Jennings

His father, famed California chef Bradley Ogden, was known as a pioneer in creating menus around farm-fresh seasonal ingredients. Now the son, Bryan Ogden, is carrying on the philosophy with his first restaurant, Apple, which opened in the Los Angeles neighborhood of West Hollywood last month.

Bryan is aiming high with Apple, an elegant 104-seat venue co-joined with an edgy lounge designed by “VIP host” Allison Melnick, as well as a Pussycat Dolls “cabaret” designed to attract Los Angeles’ glamour crowd.

It’s a scene with serious cuisine. Bryan spent the past three years helming the kitchen at the restaurant Bradley Ogden at Harrah’s Casino in Las Vegas, a concept created by his father and operated by Lark Creek Restaurant Group, which the senior Ogden co-founded. Before that, Bryan worked with Charlie Trotter in his namesake restaurant in Chicago.

But the younger Ogden yearned to return to California, where he was raised, and where fresh and local ingredients are in close proximity.

How does what you are doing at Apple differ from what you did at the restaurant Bradley Ogden?

At Apple, we’re taking the style we were doing at Bradley Ogden Las Vegas and making it more refined with nonintrusive service. The menu will change seasonally. I will be writing menus every day. We also have a very extensive wine-pairing program. Steven Geddes, a master sommelier turned chef, is doing some consulting work for us in the kitchen. [We] want to bring service to Los Angeles that will be unique. It’s all in the details. We’re shooting for three Michelin stars.

This is your first time opening a restaurant on your own. Why now?

I left [Bradley Ogden] originally to open another restaurant at Caesars Palace [in Las Vegas], and an investor told me about the opportunity here. At first, I shrugged it off, but later I saw it as a chance to come back to California and the local farmers. On any day there’s a farmers’ market in Los Angeles you can walk through. In Vegas, you get stuck behind all that concrete.

FAST FACTS

AGE: 30BIRTHPLACE: Kansas City, Kan.EDUCATION: The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y.HOBBIES: owning a small winery in Paso Robles, Calif.; traveling

Is your style of cooking different than your father’s?

We’re very similar in terms of being seasonally driven and farm-to-table. My cuisine is more comfort food, rustic American.

Tell me about dishes we might see on the menu.

We’re doing a triple-seared bluefin tuna sashimi with hearts of palm, spicy-basil ice cream and ginger crispy rice. I have a Northern California porcini tartlet with sous vide market eggs, fleur de sel and celery leaves.

And there’s a deconstructed eggplant Parmesan that features the ingredients all done separate in different ways.

Are you nervous about opening such a high-end restaurant in this economy?

Not really. Everyone around town is fairly high-end here. Even the bistros are fairly expensive. People in tough economic times tend not to travel, but they do eat out close to home and plan for it.

Is your father involved as a backer?

My dad is not involved. We have different food, and it’s time to break away on my own. I’m tired of making him money.