Vin Folk is a Michelin-guide restaurant in Hermosa Beach

A new must-visit restaurant near the beach has star quality

by Richard Foss

There is a famous but incorrect quote attributed to an otherwise forgotten Commissioner of the United States Patent Office, who allegedly stated in 1900 that his department should be closed because “Everything that can be invented has already been invented.” 

If Charles H. Duell actually ever said that, he wasn’t the first to do so. A sentiment very close to that appeared in a magazine a decade earlier, and it was intended as a joke. Still, the saying is often cited as an example of the complacency of every generation that thinks they have reached the pinnacle of civilization. 

That attitude is sometimes encountered as a reaction to contemporary cuisine. Some combinations that seemed revolutionary not long ago don’t raise an eyebrow now. It sometimes seems that everything has been tried, and it’s hard to make up a fusion or concept that somebody isn’t already experimenting with.

Even so, sometimes a brilliant team comes up with a compelling combination of personal and cultural elements that even the most jaded sophisticates find revelatory. The latest example is Vin Folk, a culinary destination that opened in Hermosa Beach in the former Chef Melba’s Bistro. Executive Chef Kevin de los Santos and chef-partner Katya Shastova bring together global influences that include the Philippines, Italy, and Russia, as well as their experience in Michelin-guide restaurants like Vespertine, Somni, and Maude. 

The restaurant interior was updated during the transition, with darker walls and stylish lighting. The white tablecloths and clunky chairs have been retired in favor of a more casual, bistro look. The open kitchen is still there, and those who enjoy watching the masters at work still can. It is fairly loud at the center of the room, though the tables in the corners are noticeably quieter.

The menu is not long, fewer than 20 items in all, but there is a wealth of ideas and some ingredients you may have to look up. (If there’s another menu this side of Hollywood that includes hrenovina, the spicy Siberian tomato-horseradish sauce, I haven’t seen it.) The servers are exceptional and know the menu well, so explain your tastes, accept their guidance, and get ready for an amazing meal.

Among the starters we tried a beet and radish salad, yellowtail in fried shallot oil with eggplant caviar and capers, chopped salad with baby potatoes, green beans, and Chinese sausage, and a whimsical headcheese toast on milk bread with artisanal American cheese. If the words “artisanal American cheese” stopped you in your tracks, I had the same reaction. There is such a thing, and it replicates the perfect melting qualities of American cheese while delivering a richer flavor. Our server explained that the headcheese toast is a riff on the famous pastrami sandwich served at Langer’s in LA, and as someone who has had their share of those, I can testify that it fits. The headcheese – actually chopped pork in a flavorful, herb and pepper laden aspic – has similarities in texture and flavor balance with the sandwich generally regarded as the best in Los Angeles. Every one of the details is different, but the concept is there.

The beet and radish salad is another eccentric idea, because sweet beets and sharp radishes generally don’t go together. Radishes sweeten when cooked, though, and then things come into focus. The gentle sharpness of radishes in brown butter complements beets nestled in tart yogurt with leaves of Hoja santa, a Mexican herb that tastes like root beer. The salad was cooling, refreshing, and completely successful.

Without our server’s recommendation I wouldn’t have ordered the yellowtail or the chopped salad, because both sounded conventional. They weren’t, but it would be hard to explain what was special about either on the menu. The fish was served over baby purple and white potatoes with fresh dill and fried capers, a combination of Baltic and Mediterranean ideas that enlivened the dish. As for the salad, it was like a cross between a Nicoise and a Caesar dressing with fermented black beans providing umami rather than egg. The bits of sliced cornichon and sweet and porky fried Chinese sausage provided little bursts of contrasting flavor and texture. Each bite was delicious. You know what else it was? Fun. All of these starters conveyed the idea that the people creating it were having a ball.

Things were more serious with the mains. We tried pork jowl and mackerel with pickles, dorade fish with bulghur wheat and Turkish salad, half jidori chicken with black eyed peas, and honey nut squash pasta in a velvety cheese sauce with chervil. The squash pasta was off the menu by our second visit, but we would have it again because it was delightful. The silky fresh pasta was served over sweet squash, offset by sauce that was like mac and cheese had grown up and gone sophisticated. The half-chicken was another item that was conceptually simple but had intricate flavors. The big, flavorful bird was served over what was referred to as a black-eyed pea cassoulet. It wasn’t a cassoulet by any stretch, because in that dish the beans are cooked down to creamy softness in a thick meat-laden stock, while the black-eyed peas and white beans that accompanied them still had texture and were in a more delicate broth. The roasted lemon that came on the side wasn’t just a garnish – squeeze a bit over the beans and it’s heavenly. The only misstep of the dish, and of our entire meal, was that the roasted eggplant was a bit overdone and tough, but that was easily forgiven.

The pork jowl and mackerel with pickles and potato is a riff on a Sicilian dish in which pork and fish, usually tuna, are served together in a sauce of tomatoes, anchovy, mayonnaise, and garlic. This version has a dash of Baltic flavor thanks to the use of mackerel instead of tuna and some dill in the sauce. Many Americans think of mackerel as a strong, oily fish, but if you try it in this sauce, you may give it a second look.

Dorade is the opposite of mackerel in some ways, a mild, meaty fish native to the Mediterranean that has plenty of umami but a delicate flavor. It had been fileted except for the collar area, grilled, and was served over bulghur wheat with a citrusy sauce made with goji berries, sumac, and what tasted like a dash of pomegranate juice. Shards of pickled red onion completed the presentation and added gentle sharpness. As with all of our mains, the portion was generous, and we took some wheat salad home – it was still a marvel the next day.

I have gotten most of the way through a review of a restaurant and wine bar without mentioning the wine. The list was curated as carefully as the food was composed. The pricing is also generous – none of the excellent by-the-glass selections is over eighteen dollars. We enjoyed a minerally Hughes Picpoul and a delicate Alvarinho Vinho Verde with the fish, a Lula Pinot Noir from Mendocino with the chicken. This wine list is a rebuke to other restaurateurs who are pricing mediocre wines at $20 a glass and say that’s the best they can do.

We tried three desserts, the Gascon-style flan, a layer cake called a Sans Royal that is a riff on a Filipino dessert, and an eccentric item called “kid and her horn.” It is made with whipped goat cheese topped with micro-greens, pear, and a buckwheat honey granita, and is topped with a curly biscuit like a goat’s horn. It’s a show stopper of a presentation, and somehow not over-sweet despite the honey and pear.

The Gascon-style flan wasn’t as pretty a presentation, but it was superb, stiff in texture and richly eggy. An eggnog sabayon enhanced the richness, while a dollop of citrus marmalade provided a diverting contrast. The “sans royal” cake was a twist on a Filipino dessert called sans rival that has a counterpart in Sweden. Both cakes are based on buttercream, meringue, and roasted nuts, almonds in Scandinavia and cashews in the Phillippines, and the Filipino version also has a dash of salt that balances the sweetness. The version here has walnuts as well as cashews atop a many-layered cake that has an unusual texture, a little dry crunch from meringue interspersed with the soft batter and creamy filling. It’s the most traditional thing we had here, and may introduce diners to a culinary delight that has been off their radar.

As remarkable as the food and the topnotch service here was, the capper was the price – at both meals the price didn’t run much above $100 per person, with wine. For an experience of this quality, that’s a bargain. It was enough to make you think that there are indeed new and wonderful things in the world, contradicting the unjustly vilified Commissioner of the patent office I mentioned in the beginning. 

And what was Mr. Duell’s actual opinion about that subject? In 1902, he was quoted as saying, “In my opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold.”

He died 105 years too early to eat at Vin Folk, but I think he would have appreciated it.

Vin Folk is at 1501 Hermosa Avenue, Hermosa Beach. Tuesday to Saturday, 5 to10 p.m. Street parking or nearby structure. Wheelchair access is good. No phone listed. Vin-folk.com. ER