Show 236, August 12, 2017: Chef D. Brandon Walker, The Mar Vista, Los Angeles

Derek Brandon WalkerThe new The Mar Vista restaurant in the Mar Vista area of Los Angeles is a chef-driven, food-first experience with locally sourced farm-to-table ingredients, unusual & rare-label wines and an eclectic lineup of live music. The culinary personalities behind it are Executive Chefs D. Brandon Walker and Jill Davie. It’s dinner nightly and Sunday Brunch.

The Mar Vista’s menu, affectionately dubbed progressive Los Angeles cuisine, features renditions of local favorites enhanced by wide-ranging flavors from L.A.’s diverse communities. Walker, Davie, and Chef de Cuisine Jorge Rivas infuse dishes with flavors from North Africa, Central America, Asia, and the Mediterranean to represent the varied diaspora. Daily specials, a Brazilian churrasco, and Davie’s signature Cranked, a tableside device that uses vintage grinders to make “ugly” fruit into granita, complete the offerings.

Further enriching the community-driven concept, The Mar Vista presents live music performances on Friday and Saturday evenings with a late-night menu accompanying the mellow sounds from a bluegrass or jazz band, among others.

We’ll meet the always energetic “Chef D.”