Michele StuevenWhen Chef Dani García was a young kid growing up in Southern Spain, watching the dubbed version of Melrose Place on TV and dreaming of Hollywood, if someone had told him he’d open a stunning Andalusian restaurant in one of LA’s hottest culinary destinations, he would have said “estás loco!”
Not so crazy after all.
The new Casa Dani in the Westfield Century City Mall is an elegant space anchored by a live olive tree in the center and an open kitchen featuring coastal Mediterranean cuisine from one of Spain’s most celebrated chefs, recognized with three-Michelin stars.
La Fiesta Mediterranean pasta (Jakob Layman)
In concert with Sam Nazarian’s SBE Group and located next to Katsuya, Casa Dani brings together creations from García’s various award-winning, Michelin-starred concepts around the world under one roof for the first time on the West Coast.
The Marbella-born chef has brought his affection for local tuna to the menu with a variety of options like a watermelon salad with bluefin tuna and crispy kale, porterhouse tuna carpaccio, tuna croquettes, and tartares.
“Tuna is in my blood,” García tells LA Weekly on a packed Friday night. “Where I come from in Southern Spain, you can see Gibraltar every day. It’s a very special area because it has a piece of the UK as well as Africa, which means a lot of amazing seafood and fish. Our food is very simple and just focused on the product, that’s what we’re going to bring to the people of LA.”
Tomato tartare (JakobLayman)
Luckily for García, the environmental and microclimate similarities between the Mediterranean and California have made the transatlantic transition easier than he expected, finding product for his smooth tomato tartar on sourdough toast and grilled avocados at the Santa Monica Farmers Market.
“The sensibility and soul of this market is so natural, it’s therapeutic to go there,” he says.
There are three different paellas on the menu served table-side: seafood, chicken, and a farmers’ market vegetable version. García’s interpretation is true Andalusian and different from what you might find at other local Mediterranean spots. The rice layer is thinner and crispy, with an emphasis on the toppings. Growing up frying fish next to his mother in Marbella, don’t miss the gamba frita or Ibérico ham croquettes.
Of course, there’s burnt Basque cheesecake for dessert made with goat cheese, a signature salted miso toffee, and ice cream-topped churro, and a carpaccio of sweet roasted pineapple with passion fruit yogurt.
“The hardest thing about coming to LA is the competition,” García says. “Everyone knows me in Spain, but I had to break in here. It’s hard to break into the US and even harder in LA. You have to change some things in the menu to suit the taste and the culture here. This city is different from New York or Miami, where I know what the people like. LA is a quieter city and is health-conscious in terms of food. That, like the temperature and the blue skies, is familiar to me.”
Chef Dani Garcia (Michele Stueven)