Le Ka Update: David Féau Named Chef, Remi Lauvand Working on a New Project

David Féau has been named consulting partner-chef at Le Ka, the downtown restaurant that opened last September. Féau was previously at the Royce in Pasadena, the fancy Langham Huntington Hotel restaurant that was reinvented earlier this spring as a steakhouse (a “wood-fired” steakhouse, no less) under chef Anthony Zappola, formerly of Craft.

Feau's estimable credits include corporate executive chef of Patina Restaurant Group and exec chef positions at Café Pinot, and the Lutéce in both New York and Las Vegas. (Matching up all those names? Keep reading; there's more.)

Féau's new menu at Le Ka includes a cote de boeuf with bordelaise sauce, Beausoleil oysters with mignonette, whole Thai snapper, pappardelle with squid and lobster broth — and also less ornate dishes such as kale salad and pizza with truffles and ricotta.

Also in the kitchen with Féau are chef de cuisine Tony Tea, sous chef Jason Witzl and pastry chef Kristin Feuer.

Feau's predecessor is Remi Lauvand, who opened Le Ka and who also has a long and worthy list of credits, among them Rivera, Café Pierre and Citrus here in L.A. and Montrachet and Le Cirque in New York. Lauvand, who is still partnering with Le Ka owners Marcus and Michael Kwan, is currently working on a new project for them — possibly a sports bar.

As for whether Lauvand will be bringing some of the dishes that worked so well at Le Ka when it was reviewed here in January — the Santa Barbara uni with oxtail and congee, for example, or the escargot with gnocchi — to the new project, we'll all have to wait and see. (Lavaund was thinking happy thoughts about his new menu when we ran into him recently, buying cherries at the Santa Monica Wednesday farmers market.) Just saying that some of us would dearly love the opportunity to eat uni and oxtail while watching a Dodgers game.

view into Le Ka's kitchen; Credit: Anne Fishbein

See also:

– Le Ka, Voila!

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