The vegan movement is mushrooming across the breadth of LA. In this setting we have a few restaurants such as Avant Garden Bistro, devoted completely to products which are dug out of the ground. Which means you wouldn’t find items that are “Impossible” or “Beyond” on the menu—it’s all just pure, plain plants.
Placed in an upstairs setting on Melrose Avenue, it’s actually a derivative of NY’s own Ravi DeRossi’s Avant Garden. And while meant to conjure up a French bistro ambience, this is a cozy, romantic spot you’d imagine the Eagles unwinding at after one of their gigs in the ‘70s. This plant-based bistro opened up only some months back, and yet at this point feels like a neighborhood mainstay.
There’s an Andrew Nowling-designed outdoor garden which looks like an enchanted forest of sorts. Nowling has been a name in the exterior design business for a quarter century, crafting sets for film and TV projects the likes of Carnival, Euphoria, The Family Man, and Ballers. Meanwhile the indoor dining area benefits from the design skills and sensibilities of DeRossi, who also happens to have co-founded the famous bar brand Death & Co.
“There are five red hanging lamps over the bar, three green ones over the red banquets and one matching green lamp adjacent to the banquets by the window,” DeRossi says. “They supposedly originated in France – I don’t know the designers, as I bought them from an antique auction online. I chose them to match the burgundy velvet curtains made by my mother and the red banquets made by a friend of mine.
“The entire design of the inside with all the profound colors and decadent fabrics was made to look and feel like an old French cabaret,” he continues. “And also to create a distinct opposition to the lush greenery of the outdoor garden. I chose these light fixtures specifically because they give very specific pointed light, over the bar or at a table you can feel as though this light gives you the illusion that you are in a private space, that possibly no one is near you and your party, and that maybe you can act as such. They create an intimacy that I loved.”
The tapas offered here feature a curated list of revolving cold items and toasts such as avocado with sushi rice, blistered shishitos, and carrot ginger dressing. You can also enjoy warm perennial items aside from this, such as black garlic puttanesca with capers, olives, and red chili. One other signature dish worth mentioning, which also serves as a New York staple, is carrot with French spring onion sauce and pistachio chermoula and blood sorrel leaves.
“What draws me to vegetables is extremely difficult to explain,” says DeRossi. “If canvas and oil paint did not exist and I told a group of artists I just invented these products, well, the art world would go crazy. That’s how I feel about vegetables, like they were just invented in all their beauty and complexity. We set out to make each individual vegetable become the best version of itself. For generations, vegetables have been shoved to the side, never taken seriously, just something that you must eat in order to lead a healthy lifestyle. We want to change the narrative and put the often forgotten vegetable at the center of your plate, much like Jan van Eyck did with oil paint.”