This is your captain speaking, I'm Arna yetan, captain of All in America Line, MS Master. You're listening to the so-called restaurant show on AM 830 KLAA. And welcome back, it is a Labor Day weekend holiday version of the SoCal restaurant show, and happily we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon, right here on AM 830 KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024, and it can also catch us on the AM 830 KLAA app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. Welcome, we appreciate you being out there and we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Something we're seeing more of in Los Angeles recently is upscale Mediterranean restaurants doing a lot with wood-fired cooking. It's healthy cuisine, it's tasty cuisine. I've been hearing some bows recently about the new Carmel Melrose, which is in the Melrose district of Los Angeles, on the site of a very well-known and famous British pub that had a long run called The Village Idiot, obviously Carmel Melrose with Mediterranean cuisine and wood-fired grill. Very different concept, but the great thing is, is they retained the very popular U-shaped bar that was part of Village Idiot for many, many years, and joining us to kind of tell the whole story of Carmel Melrose is one of the owner partners. This is Rani Benari. Rani, good morning and welcome to the show. Good morning, thank you. Rani, give us a little background because I know you and your partners have other restaurants in the LA area, but what was the thought behind Carmel Melrose and probably the first thing Rani, before you get to that, is of course in Southern California, when we hear the name Carmel, we're thinking of that lovely sleepy seaside resort up in Northern California, and that isn't this Carmel. So first of all, explain which Carmel this is. Yeah, absolutely. So the name Carmel is an ode to the chucca Carmel in Tel Aviv, which is the really renowned outdoor marketplace in Tel Aviv. It's really the center of everything. You know, you go to the beach, you walk through the chucca, you want to get groceries, you go to the chucca, you want to have good restaurants, that's where you go. It's good spices, good meat, you have the fishmonger, and in front of it, you have the best fish sandwiches you've ever had. You know, it's the kind of place where it really is the heartbeat of the city, and you know, we thought it would be the perfect name to reflect what we were trying to achieve. Tell us a little bit about how that space became available to you, and other than retaining the U-shaped bar, Rani, it does not look at all like what the village idiot looked like. You know, you've redesigned the interior. Yeah, the village idiot is really a special place, and I think, you know, most people have been in LA in the last 15 years, you know, hold a special place in their heart for it. When we were looking for a space, we had a few things that were non-negotiable, one of them being an open kitchen, one being, you know, an open flame grill, and one being a wood-burning oven. Those are the things that were really the core elements of what we're trying to achieve. We actually landed on a different space, I won't say which, but, you know, we started going through a deal-making process, and the restaurant backed out to their credit. They were just doing too well to continue with the deal, so we were stuck without a space without the whole deal put together, and all of a sudden, we found out that the village idiot opened. We saw it, I think, one of the first people to see it when it became available, and we put an offer on the spot, and, you know, pretty much locked in the same day, so it was, you know, love the first site when we walked in that space. Well, I understand why, and, you know, good for you, you know, corner location, I mean, and, you know, that corridor of Melrose that you're in, running a lot of activity. Oh, yeah. And keeping the U-shaped bar with it was actually a big thing for us. Again, we love the village idiot. We wanted to keep something, and the middle bar, I mean, what, you know, that's, like, the signature piece, and we actually left it, you know, almost exactly the same. We re-finished it a bit, and just left it, you know, pretty similar to what it was, because we really do, you know, want to keep an element of the village idiot alive. Well, and is someone that is a veteran on the Los Angeles restaurant scene, Ronnie, from Restaurant Growers' point of view, definitely appreciated, because it was a signature aspect of the restaurant, and very popular, and based on the Saturday night, I was there, Ronnie. I would say that your guests definitely have taken to the U-shaped bar, because I think in the two hours that I was there, I'm not sure there was ever an empty seat at the U-shaped bar there. So it was buzzing, and obviously, you know, you've created an environment there. Yeah, the goal was really to do what we like from Tel Aviv, which is an environment where you can go eat, have a great time, still sit at the bar, you know, be able to eat and drink, and mingle, and have, you know, kind of elevated nighttime experience without, you know, drifting into nightclub territory, right, just to be able to have a little bit of nightlife along with your food. So we really wanted to make a vibrant bar scene as a big part of our concept. Now, you have an executive chef and a chef that I believe are partners in Carmel. Can you explain how they work together? Because I think in terms of day-to-day, if I have this right, Chef Asaf is pretty responsible for what's going on, but clue us in. Yeah, absolutely. Well, so Chef Asaf is the executive chef. The menu is his creation, and it's, you know, he is really, he's an incredibly talented chef that, again, once he became available to do a project, the rest of us jumped at the opportunity, you know, to do something together. When he made us aware that he was thinking about moving to LA, like, don't work with anyone else, we got you, let's make something happen. So you have the other chef in the mix. He's been a partner of mine for years. We have two other restaurants together. We, you know, we've been, you know, in the LA scene for a while doing everything from private events to restaurants, and us have, you know, we together have been fans of Asaf at his New York restaurant in 19 Cleveland for years. So again, when he told us he wanted to move to LA, like, yes, you do your thing here. We'll give you support. We're, you know, here from LA, us and Leeron Hazan, the other partner. We're from the LA scene. We'll give you kind of the whole structure, but we want you to make your magic here. And tell us about some of the appliances and applications, Ronnie, that he has in the kitchen, particularly about the wood fired element, because you have a wood fired of an and, I believe, a wood fired grill. And you can see that, you know, usually that's hidden away, not at Carmel. No, again, when we walked in the village idiot, and we saw what we wanted to see, which was that, you know, open flame grill. As you know, those things are not easy to pull off in LA these days. So when a restaurant early has it existing, that's a big thing for us. And the open kitchen element, again, that was our non-negotiable from day one. We wanted an open kitchen where people can really see the action. This kind of thing is pretty common in Tel Aviv. You know, at a lot of chef restaurants, people want to be part of the action. They want to take a shot with the kitchen, which, you know, we do pretty regularly. They want to be in the mix. They want to see the food. And you're seeing it coming up here, too, with the rise of, you know, the bear and all these things where people kind of want to see the restaurant experience live. It's more than just dinner. It's Monday's food. It's the whole environment of being in the restaurant, seeing people passionate about what they do, bringing everything to life. So getting to see the chef, the cooks, put the dishes together in front of you and then putting it in front of you and having fun with you and taking a drink with you, it makes them more than just a bite to eat at your standard restaurant. Of course. But I think we should make the point, Ronnie, because you mentioned the bear and the chef character in that. Karmi, I think you should mention that Chef Asaf, I think, is having much more fun than Karmi seems to be having in the bear. And Asaf enjoys people, and he enjoys touching tables. So I just don't want people to feel intimidated. Oh, no, absolutely not. It's actually the other way around a big, again, a big thing for us. And, you know, again, it's very television. I'll say it over and over. But, you know, is really blending the lines. Again, the kitchen will take a shot with you. The entire kitchen will take a shot with the kitchen counter because we believe in rather than like a really uptight, fine dining environment, which there's a place for that as well. But rather than being in a very heavy fine dining environment, we believe in, we call it "fun dining," where the food is at the level of fine dining and has the, you know, rotating menu and seasonality and really high level creativity. But also, you know, it gives you the environment where you can be yourself and have fun and not feel like you have to wear a suit or whatever it is, you know, where you can really interact with everyone at play. So we want you to feel at home while experiencing the highest level of food we can deliver. Absolutely. Ronnie, before we take our first break and pick up the conversation, and then we need to come back and talk about both the food and the bar program, but we're doing well. Let our listeners know exactly where you are on Melrose and what that cross-street is. Yeah, we're on the corner of Melrose and Martel. So that's 7383 Melrose. Yeah, right in the mix. No doubt about that. And you're only closed on Monday, correct? Correct. We're dinners Tuesday through Sunday, and then we have Saturday and Sunday brunch as well. Ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about the new Carmel Melrose, which is in the height of the action on Melrose in Los Angeles. We're speaking with their managing partner, Ronnie Benari. We're going to pick up the conversation on the other side. It is the SoCal restaurant show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Proters. Give us a minute. We'll be back.
