Twenty five years after they were invented, gastropubs are an institution rather than a novelty. The original recipe of high quality food and a big beer selection has evolved into an institution with a visual signature that includes long shared tables, lots of exposed wood, and a blackboard menu even if the selection doesn’t change.
Laurel Tavern is the latest entrant in a crowded field; it’s on the same block as The Standing Room and around the corner from the Pier Plaza’s offerings. The tavern stands out in two ways: the ordering method and the very limited menu.
You should be able to figure out the ordering part even from outside, since a sign on the door says “Please order at the bar.“ So does a sign inside, and so did a live human who welcomed us and reminded us to order at the bar. It is a rather unusual way to run things in a large place where the bartenders are usually busy making drinks, as they were on both visits.
At the bar we were handed menus, necessary because the blackboard menu has no descriptions and is mounted on a back wall where it is not particularly visible. The selection is almost startlingly brief: a few shared plates, three salads, three burgers, and two sandwiches. Vegetarians and those watching the carbs have few options, unusual in a health-conscious area like this.
Once you order, which you do while the person you are talking to is also trying to mix drinks and serve other customers, you will be handed a napkin and silverware, a number so the food runner can find you, and whatever drinks you ordered. Getting these through a crowd of people to a table will help you appreciate the skill of a professional server and give you a feeling of accomplishment.
Once there comes the first good experience: they make really good drinks here. The Old Fashioned and American in Paris are very good, but the standout is the Bianco Negroni, a concoction of gin, amaro, cherry liqueur, and bitters. I had never heard of this before and now want to learn how to make it, because it is complex and delicious.
Our food arrived quickly on both visits despite the fact that the place was pretty crowded, and it all arrived at once. If you want to split shared plates and then have mains afterward, that’s two trips to the bar to order. I recommend this because otherwise you may have a lot of items that quickly cool or get soggy on the table at once.
We tried two shared plates, the smoked Louisiana wings and the Brussel sprouts with lemon, roasted grapes, hazelnuts, and ricotta cheese. The wings were spot on, nicely smoky and doused in a sauce that owed at least as much to buffalo sauce as it did to Creole or Cajun flavors. The Brussel sprouts were not as successful because they had been overdressed with balsamic vinegar to the point where other items were overwhelmed.
We tried three sandwiches in two visits: crispy chicken, the hickory burger, and a duck confit club. The crispy chicken was so good on the first visit that my wife had to have it again, which tells you what you need to know. The bird was cooked perfectly on both occasions and had a great mix of spicy, tart, and cool thanks to the fresno chile slaw and pickle. It will be a struggle not to order it again when we come back.
This isn’t to denigrate the other two items, which were both very good. The tender pulled duck and smoky bacon was nicely offset by pickled green tomato and cherry mustard, and though it was a messy sandwich to eat, it was quite worth it. We did wish that the restaurant would put napkins on the tables, since all sandwiches were on the juicy side. When you have grease all over your hands is not when you want to make a trip to the bar to get something to clean them.
As for the burger, it was good meat done slightly on the rare side of the medium rare that I ordered, topped with bacon and onion compote, cheddar, and lettuce. They don’t go overboard with weird flavor combinations or try to make the biggest burger in miles, they just deliver a solid product and expect people to appreciate that.
You can add good freshly-cut fries to your sandwich for an extra three bucks, and they arrive lightly dusted with a seasoned salt. There is another option called “seasoned” which apparently involves even more seasoning, but we didn’t order that. It is apparently not possible to get them without any salt at all and add that yourself, and there is no salt and pepper on the tables.
The staff at Laurel Tavern are all helpful once you make contact with them, and they’re working as hard as they can to deal with a system their customers find counterintuitive. I feel safe in saying that nobody is likely to prefer this system to table service, and customer preferences aren’t what drives this: it’s about hiring as few people as possible. They’re banking on serving a limited menu so well that customers excuse the hassle in getting it, and they may have made a good bet since they were doing good business on both visits. They did their job well enough that I’d consider going again just to eat that chicken and have another Blanco Negroni.
Laurel Tavern is at 1220 Hermosa Avenue in Hermosa Beach. Open daily 5 p.m. – 2 a.m., street parking or valet in lot, wheelchair access OK and some low tables. Full bar, few vegetarian items. Menu at laureltavern.com, phone 424-275-9694. ER
