“At Lustig in the Helms Bakery District in Culver City they speak FOOD – the language of the world. A casual neighborhood spot, serving a modern twist on dishes that you know and love. There is an Austrian vein running through the culinary offerings with Chef Bernhard Mairinger (ex-BierBeisl in Beverly Hills) combining the flavors of the world in an innovative way. Enjoy a whole new dining experience with Chef Bernhard at his restaurant.”
Think Veal or Jidori Chicken Schnitzel served with lemon and a lingonberry-yuzu chutney. Also, the BierBeisl Salad with romaine, arugula, pork belly, corn, pumpkin seed, radish peppers and Parmesan.
How about a Raclette Cheese pizza with radicchio, potato confit and housemade pickled vegetables.
““Lustig” is the German word to describe the most fun and funny events. English speakers will recognize its root “Lust” is a word that conjures up our innermost notions of play, desire, and curiosity. Lustig, like lust is a core value of Austrian lifestyle. A moment only becomes “Lustig” when shared with others in a warm, welcoming atmosphere where minds and hearts are awakened to new possibilities. This is the sentiment Lustig restaurant brings to Los Angeles – Gemütlichkeit!”
Chef Bernhard takes a break from his busy kitchen to continue with us.
This is Wing Land, founder of Gloucester Stalker, with my goodness Mingo Rayman. When I want to know what's going on in the world of food, I listen to SoCal Restaurant Show on AM830-KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball. And welcome back. It is the SoCal Restaurant Show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon, right here on AM830-KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM830 Angels app. And keep in mind, Angels pregame follows us at 1230 today. The halos are up in Oakland playing a matinee game there. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show, putting it all together. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. A few years ago, on Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills, I was intrigued by a restaurant with an Austrian theme called Beer Bisal, and their executive chef and proprietor Bernard Myringer. You can't miss this gentleman because he is as tall as an NBA basketball player. The restaurant was there for a while. It disappeared. We're always, are we looking for when Chef Bernard would be back? And fortunately, in the last year, he relocated to the Helms Bakery District in Culver City and opened Loostig, and this is a restaurant that you will really enjoy. A lot of creativity. Again, there's an Austrian theme that runs through it. But the care, the detail, the things that they do from scratch there that they really don't need to, just because of Chef Bernard's commitment to what he does, impresses. And I've been waiting to get Chef Bernard on the show for a while, and I am happy to welcome Chef Bernard of Loostig at the Helms Bakery District in Culver City to the show. Chef Bernard, good morning, and welcome. Good morning, Andy. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Oh, believe me, Chef, I appreciate your food, and I appreciate what you're doing at Loostig. Bernard, let's start right out. You know, Loostig is a little bit of a mouthful to pronounce. What does Loostig mean? So, Loostig has a few meanings, like literally translated. It means funny, but then also in kind of a, you know, practical way you can apply this, having a good time and having fun. So, it really, for me, just goes well together with hospitality. It should stand for, right? It's going out to eat. It's expensive these days just because the way everything is. And you want to have a good time. You want to enjoy yourselves. You want to laugh. You want to have fun. And so, I figured having this, and I planned that things I closed you by having this transition into not being a strictly Austrian restaurant. I worked all over the world in Michelin star restaurants to food courts to ski resorts whatsoever. At some point, I want to just be cooking my cuisine. What I consider fun, you know, or basically Bernard's authentic cuisine. And so, Loostig was the perfect name for it because I'm kind of a cheeky punk in a way too. So, it really just, you know, it's personal to me. It really resembles who I am. And, yeah, at the concert I've written 13 years ago, I'm glad to see it finally come to life. Well, Chef, you know, you're a serious culinaryan, but you do also have a sense of humor and a sense of fun. The restaurant itself is very bright and colorful. Tell us a little bit about what your thoughts were in terms of that restaurant design. What's nice also is, is, you know, everybody, Chef Bernard, these days, you got to have a patio. You know, you have a beautiful patio in front of your restaurant that opens on a walkway. You know, it's not on a street, so you're dining there and getting all the car fumes. So, you have different environments within Loostig. So, we're not first got approached by the building on a shift. And I was a little bit familiar with Call of City, but not too much. I knew Holmes Quaker just from HD Better Cups, since that's where I bought my furniture for my nearby restaurant. And then I knew Father's Office obviously since I've been sustained for a long time. And I was familiar with the area, but I really wasn't. But then I did a little bit of research, spent some time there. And I just realized how great of a spot it is and how much history there is to the building, which honestly, you know, when you take on a space like the one we've taken on, these are used to be there, what, 20 years big following institutions. Yeah, it's important. So, you know, it's important that you obviously a space that, you know, has done so well for such a long time. But also, you know, 20 years of operations, there's a certain wear and care on the restaurant because it's just the nature of the beast. And so it was really important to me to just say, look, there's a blank canvas, but there is also kind of a few restrictions. We have to be careful. It's an old building. Let's honor that, right? It's something that people are looking forward to because there has been something that's been geared to them for so long. So let's have some fun. Let's bring something new, but let's not overdo it. And it's funny to say it when you think of, let's not overdo it, and then you have a bright red bar and a blue column and all those different colors. But we chose them on purpose because it's just working this beautiful contrast with light, natural woods, dark woods, mellow colors. And then you have a few little pops that just stand out to give a little bit more life, right? So it's really honoring what's there, but also having this little playfulness, which I think it turned out to be such a beautiful restaurant. And I'm really happy with the time team translated to what I had in mind. No, Chef Bernard, it's got a great look and a great feel. And as I was mentioning earlier, you have different environments within the restaurant. You also have an L-shaped bar that is very popular. Also, there are high top tables as well as regular tables. And you have a beautiful private dining room in Chef Bernard. People are always looking for an interesting private dining room. Tell us a little bit about that. What's the capacity for your private dining room? So we basically go somewhere from between 10 to 12. People for the private dining room, and this has become actually very popular for celebrations or just gatherings. And it's nice to see that people are going out and making an evening out like a celebration, right? It's like, here's 10-12 people. They sit down. They order food and menu. And we're very casual with it. Like, we're not charging a private dining room fee. We want to be here for everybody. We want to accommodate as many people as we can get. If it's a preset menu, obviously, with a minimum. But other than that, it's really bringing as many friends as you want. Sit down, have a good time, drink, eat, and just enjoy. So that's really the idea behind the private dining room. And so far, it's been really, really well received. So I'm very happy about that. And similar with the patio too, you know, we created the outdoor area, as you mentioned earlier, to be away from the street. But it's close to a corner. There's on-site parking. It's walkable. It's a private property. It's clean. But then again, you're in an area that's busy, right? There's life. There's trees. And it's just bright and light. And it's especially, you know, off to COVID and everything. I figured it's important to really create an environment outside that's also comfortable. I'm inviting. Well, and as you mentioned, Bernard, you're actually on a corner. You have visibility on two sides. You have visibility from the walking part of the complex. And then you also have the visibility on the very busy street as people go by, you know, driving by in their car. So, you know, it's a great location. If they can't find you when they're walking within the Helms complex, Chef Bernard, they've got a problem. And one thing you also ought to mention, your landlord is a very visionary gentleman and a very visionary family. It was quite a leap of faith on their part all those years ago to take this vacant bakery building that, for those of us that are native Angelenos, we all grew up with Helms bread and their little delivery trucks. I mean, it was an institution and, you know, very sad to see them go, but then, you know, you had this huge complex that was vacant and for the Marx family to, you know, envision that over a long term, you know, they could bring this back to life and bring in restaurants and design showrooms and a whole mix of things, you know, really remarkable. Tell us a little bit about your experience with your landlord because, boy, Chef Bernard is an executive chef and a restaurateur. One of the real weak links in business, you know, is the landlord and they're probably more unsympathetic ones out there, Bernard, than the landlord that you're working with. Couldn't agree, Mark, so I literally the first two restaurants and, you know, people still ask me to this day, they're like, why did you close down via by-law and, you know, it was successful and people loved it and it has become like one of those local neighborhood spots back then in Beverly Hills, but the building got sold and I could not align with the, you know, like business and just the new landlord because they're just cared about the money, which that's not, it always works right there, so they just increased their rent and I said, okay, great, I'm out of it, so for me, going back into a restaurant was really important to make sure I find a landlord that knows what it takes and understands that the restaurant industry is still one of the hardest out there, it's just the way it is, right? And so, I've met building on a share of Raleigh to action some of the family members and what I instantly realized and loved about them, there's no less to think half of me. It's like, we did do it right and we don't do it and that's my approach, right? That's exactly what I think with the restaurant, I think there has to be a certain standards of service, there has to be a certain standard and quality of food and same with design and everything, so, you know, we basically immediately connected and clicked based on, you know, like, we have a vision for this and we're not letting anyone interfere with our vision because there's this potentially want to make the most of it and so I was really happy when they offered this space to me and they are safe in my hands to say, look, we think you can create something better that, you know, has to potentially become another institution, so I'm very grateful for that opportunity. Now, Bernard, it's wonderful when you have that sort of relationship with a landlord because, as you were saying, there really is nothing tougher right now with the restaurant business and all the idiosyncrasies that are part of that, so you can concentrate on your operation. We are speaking with the executive chef, proprietor of Lustig in Culver City at the Helms Bakery District, that being chef Bernard Myringer, we're going to pick up the conversation on the other side, you are listening to the SoCal restaurant show, we're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Proters and West Coast Prime Meats, give us a minute, we'll We'll be back. (upbeat music)
