Dialogue Chef Dave Beran Switches Gears with a “Fun and Playful” New Bistro

French restaurants have made a sweeping return in the United States over the last five years, and by that I mean explicitly French restaurants. France as the synonym for culinary excellence began fading in the 1990s, as chefs of many heritages...

Pasjoli   

Dave Beran recently scored big on eBay. The 38-year-old chef acquired an antique duck press from a man in Ohio for less than $3,000. It’s nearly identical to one he already owns, but Beran is that rare chef in need of not one but two of the 19th...

Dave Beran’s French restaurant Pasjoli in Santa Monica serves drive-across-town rice pudding. It is luscious, with a silky whipped cream folded around the kernels of rice. It sings with vanilla. There’s just a hint of cinnamon. Beran’s pudding is...

The end of August is my favorite time to eat at California’s fanciest restaurants. Never is it easier to score last-minute reservations than during this lull-in-dining-out moment as Angelenos wind up summer vacations, local tourism dips briefly...

One of the best things I’ve ever eaten was a pressed squab that was part of the Hunt menu at Chicago’s restaurant Next, a bloody, barely roasted bird whose breasts and legs were ceremoniously carved off by a chef at a tableside cart, and its...