My Favorite Bar I've Never Been To

There's a new Father's Office in Culver City. You'll recall that the original Father's Office burger was the inspiration for our Blue Cheese-Gruyere burger at Jungle. Here's Jonathan Gold's review of the new one:

All Hopped Up at The New Father's Office

Sang Yoon's latest is bigger and probably better than the original. But can you get a seat?
By Jonathan Gold
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 - 10:05 am

It is undeniably pleasant, the new Father’s Office Los Angeles, a gastronomically inclined bar fitted into the eastern flank of the old Helms Bakery building, crowded with people who know the difference between a lager and a double IPA, flat-screens discreetly flashing the basketball playoffs in the corners, and long, lacquered-wood picnic tables stretching into the distance on the heated, vaguely nautical patio outside. No matter how busy it is, the bartenders seem happy to explain the comparative hoppiness of Quebec ales or the exact components of a Father’s Office martini, which is made with white Lillet in place of vermouth, homemade orange bitters and your choice of artisanal gins. You could spend a long Friday afternoon here, snacking on Spanish cheeses, glistening Spanish anchovies cured on the premises and dusted with lemon zest, and cumin-crusted skewers of lamb, which collapse in your mouth like a sigh. You will find beers that to the best of my knowledge will elude you anywhere else, like the butterscotch-tinged Allagash Curieux aged in old bourbon barrels or Belgian beers that cost more per bottle than fine wine. The bar’s house-smoked Dutch eel is soft and rich enough to settle into like a warm bath.

The original Father’s Office is easily the most controversial restaurant in town, either a mecca of cuisine or a haven for louts, a hop-scented mosh pit or the source of the best moderately priced dinner on the Westside. There are people who drive 25 miles to get a crack at the sweet-potato fries and Japanese microbrews, and others who refuse to set foot into the place; people for whom the hamburger is worth any amount of discomfort and people for whom the discomfort of the rugby scrum necessary to snag a table is too much to bear for anything. With Father’s Office, which inspires the extremes of behavior often described by scientists studying overcrowded animal cages, there is no middle ground.

Chef-owner Sang Yoon is fond of pointing out that Father’s Office is less a restaurant than a bar that happens to serve food, and as a bar, Father’s Office is not unprecedented. In New York, you could wait half of forever for a wobbly stool at the gastropub Spotted Pig. If I had to choose a single meal in Barcelona, it would probably be at Inopia, a perfected tapas bar in the Sant Antoni neighborhood so popular that many of its customers order from a glorified takeout window in the front of the restaurant and consume their cava and boquerones leaning on cars parked out front. If you are lucky enough to be pointed to one of the better wine bars in Paris, you, your glass of Fleurie and your Morteau sausage will be packed into less space than you’d be allotted during rush hour on the Metro. Yoon, whose background is in haute cuisine instead of taverns, is more or less the Los Angeles equivalent of David Chang, whose Momofuku Ko in New York City typically sells out each day’s seating in less time than it takes to crack an egg, and Yoon could probably get away with serving his goat-cheese gratinée in telephone booths if he felt like it.

Continued here.

Although review just touches on it, the FO takes a wonderful approach to it's liquors. No Vodka. And only the finer liquors from small producers. Here's the cocktails they feature:

Office Martini: Choice of Gin, Lillet Blanc, Orange Bitters
Sidecar: Maison Prunier VSOP Cognac, Combier Orange, Lemon
Manhattan: Michter's Rye, Carpano Antica, Barrel Aged Bitters
Negroni: Plymouth Gin, Luxardo Bitter, Punt E Mes
Aviation: Anchor Junipero, Luxardo Maraschino, Lemon

I gotta go.