“Love & Salt in Manhattan Beach is a story that begins with Cafe Pierre, a restaurant birthed by Guy Gabriele in 1977 to bring a taste of France to Los Angeles’ South Bay. While Cafe Pierre was a beloved part of the community for nearly 37 years, in 2014, Guy and his daughter Sylvie Gabriele, now the owner of Love & Salt, closed the restaurant to bring new life to the iconic space.”
“Love & Salt is a philosophy: that food needs only two ingredients to be great. It’s a sensibility that informs the feeling in the restaurant and the dishes on the menu — Italian-inspired with Southern California soul. An approachable wine list and classic cocktail program similarly reflect the vibrant SoCal setting of the restaurant, located just steps from the Manhattan Beach pier.”
Executive Chef Chris Feldmeier (ex- Bar Moruno) has just returned to Love & Salt to oversee the menu. He was previously cooking there in 2018. Chef Chris is one of the noteworthy chefs (25 high profile chefs for each night) for the upcoming Manhattan Beach Food & Wine Festival in Manhattan Village set for the evenings of Friday, October 11th and Saturday, October 12th. We reel in Chef Chris from his busy kitchens to join us.”
Hi I'm Sherry I'm the Los Angeles advisory board for Korea's Recooling and the Arts program. When I want the absolute best in Food 411 I listen to the SoCal restaurant show right here on AM830KLAA. 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 AM830KLAA the home of Angels Baseball 2024 and you can also catch us on the AM830 Angels app I'm Andy Harris the executive producer and co-host to the show kind of putting it all together and we are proudly sponsored each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce a restaurant in Manhattan Beach and for those of you that don't know there is a booming restaurant business in Manhattan Beach not only do you have a lot of casual places but you start having a lot of very prominent chefs that are now cooking there and making it a destination and a restaurant I've always enjoyed there is Love and Salt the proprietorist is a second-generation restaurateur her father had Cafe Pierre there for almost 37 years before Sylvie took over and converted into Love and Salt and I was there on a Saturday night a week ago and let me tell you from six o'clock until the time I left at 8.30 there was not a seat available in the restaurant or at their large and long bar recently a chef who is no stranger to the so-called restaurant show that being chef Chris Feldmeyer we last chatted with Chris when he was at Bar Maroona a concept we always loved Chris's return to Love and Salt and we wanted to catch up with him and with that his background it is a pleasure to welcome chef Chris Feldmeyer back to the show Chris good morning and welcome back good morning Andy how are you today chef I am doing well now chef I have to pay you a compliment and that compliment is when I knew that you were going to be back on the show sadly I had not been to Love and Salt in a while but in preparation for this conversation I needed to go there and see you're updated in revised menu and it turned out the Saturday night I was there you Sylvie your general manager were up at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for the LA Times food bowl now chef Chris that's when it can all go south and if I didn't know all three of you were away I would not have known that the really the key management team was not there and that is the sign of a well-run restaurant because as much as I'd like to chef Chris there's really nothing I could criticize in the whole experience from the time yeah from the time the manager on duty greeted us at the door and seated us through dessert and what also impressed me Chris is is the staff is really knowledgeable down to the level of the expediter and the busboy you can talk with them about the dishes and they're really knowledgeable about them and very enthusiastic about that so you got to have a big smile on your face chef Chris I have the biggest smile right now I wish we were on TV so I could show you that is the biggest compliment you can give a chef is to have his staff perform in just the way that you would want them to be able when you're there it's just I have an incredible staff there they work very hard we all work very hard to be consistent and and they just they do such a wonderful job and it's always wonderful to hear that that everyone thinks it was a lot well chef Chris also you know as we all know it's not an easy time in the restaurant business right now and the restaurant scene in Manhattan Beach is competitive and love and salt is not the new kid on the block anymore and to see that level of activity on a Saturday night from early you know through what the peak dinner hour would have been the fact that you were fully seated and functioning well you know that makes you feel good about hospitality again because a lot of your colleagues are unfortunately not in the same situation yeah it's it's very tough out there for everybody and it is a highly competitive market you know as you know after COVID people just don't eat out as often or as frequently as they used to it's just it's very sad but it always is inspiring when you when you go in you have a beautiful night and as I say host the greatest dinner party you possibly can at midnight to the week as you possibly can now chef Chris you are particularly known for your touch with pastas and there's a wonderful pasta section that is on your menu we ordered the stuffed shells because it just looked interesting and something a little different but we also got a taste of this new boleñezi preparation that you have i'm probably going to mispronounce it but is it mafaldin yes you did pronounce it perfectly mafaldin um if it's a it's a kind of a play on tagliatelle with a little bit of a wavy edge like you would say like almost a lasagna edge on the uh on the pasta and it just kind of grips the bolognese and keeps it on the on the noodle itself so that you can just get the beautiful gorgeous you know beef and pork flavor mixed in with your uh pasta well again highly recommendable for someone that's looking for something a little different in a boleñezi uh and the stuffed shells were you know excellent too but uh you know chef chris with you and pasta i would not expect otherwise um now um in terms of your pizza selection you know there were several things that we were interested in but we ordered a lot as it was and one pizza was going to do it um tell us about the decade uh duck egg pizza and there's something that you have the server or the plate runner do at the table when that pizza is put down that i'd like you to share with the audience because i just love um extras that happen table side it's it's interactive uh people are looking uh it definitely gets the attention of the dining room well our ducking pizza is it's kind of a play on carbonara pasta in a way uh we do a beautiful mozzarella a little bit of uh fontina cheese some pancetta on there and then we take a fresh duck egg uh crack it and put it on the top just to yoke and then table side we have once dropped we have the runner slash expediter take the yoke smash it and rub it all over the pizza so it gives it that beautiful rich luxurious egg yoke flavor all over the pizza it's it's been a staple since the restaurant opened it it's just um it's just one of my favorite pizzas in the world well uh chef chris not only is it a wonderful pizza but again that just extra visual just adds to the experience so uh you know definitely kudos there um now chef chris every Italian restaurant worth its salt uh has on and cheany on the menu um what is special about your orange cheany because it's really memorable it it stands out it's it's different than what i've seen in other places uh that you'd remember it and say yeah boy you know uh it's always a choice in the appetizer area whether it's going to be the orange cheany or the meatballs these days but the orange cheany is definitely worth your consideration well thank you the orange cheany you know there's there's the two ways to do it you can do very small balls of orange cheany or like in italy a lot of times you see them as a street food or something that you can grab and my hand held so i like to do them in a larger size and with everything as you know adi it starts with beautiful produce so we take beautiful tomatoes and then the best uh mozzarella feared a lot they we possibly can and stuff it with that and then just golden deep fry until it's warmed all the way through melty rich and delicious i mean it's quality ingredients as you know well uh absolutely but uh sometimes easier said than done chef chris because you know everybody is so cost conscious right now and and you know they're looking to economize uh wherever they can now um chef chris kind of is your introduction back to love and salt because the fact that you have returned to love and salt and until like in the last week this apparently was a state secret so uh you know okay sylvie uh you know but but you know we got to let sylvie know that that people now know chef chris you're back at love and salt but uh your big debut for the dining public uh is coming up uh on saturday october 12th you are part of the new manhattan beach food and wine festival uh pretty exciting new event that has 25 name chefs each night friday and saturday night participating and it is benefiting the careers through colony arts program you're going to be there saturday october 12th i'm sure it's probably a secret but can you whisper what you might be preparing for the guests that evening well i've been working on something uh brand new uh kind of uh event thing where i'm going to do antipasti bar so i'll have uh you know six or seven different little small bites that people can take a look at choose what they want they can have a little bit of each one of them or a lot of one thing uh and uh what those are will be a surprise but we will be doing a beautiful antipasti bar for everybody uh and for ticket information it's manhattan beach food and wine dot com manhattan beach food and wine dot com chef chris before we need to say goodbye to you before we see you saturday evening october 12th at manhattan beach food and wine what is the address of love and salt and also the website well it is uh three one seven menhattan beach boulevard and manhattan beach california uh and our website is love and salt la dot com ladies and gentlemen love and salt and institution and manhattan beach and now one of their earlier chefs uh chef chris filled mire is back with them and definitely running full throttle and you know just not your typical atalian restaurant experience it is our top of the hour break you are listening to the so-called restaurant shown we're proudly presented by melissa's world variety produce we're going to be back before you know
