Chef Samuel Monsour Pops Up with Antibellum + Future of Junk Food Recap

 

Chef Samuel Monsour formerly of jm Curley in Boston landed in Los Angeles a few months ago. Next weekend, he brings his pre-Civil War concept, Antibellum March 27 and 28 at Hotel Figueroa in Downtown Los Angeles. The seven-course tasting includes a wine pairing (and tax and gratuity) making the $145 ticket a bit more reasonable. Check out the sample menu on the tickets page. The charcuterie and beef heart dish sound great.

I went to his Future of Junk Food popup, a collaboration between him and friends including Chef Marcel Vigneron of Beefsteak, Chef Jeremy Fox of Rustic Canyon, Thi and Nguyen Tran of Starry Kitchen, Erwin and Eric Tjahyadi of Kodomo, Devon Espinosa of Church Key who did all the drinks.

 

Devon did a great job pairing all the drinks to the food. After our welcome drink and amuse, we quickly rolled into a tuna pizza by Marcel paired with a vermouth drink.

Vermouth drink – vermouth, Dolin dry, lemon peel

 

Marcel’s new restaurant Beefsteak is opening soon. Although I know it’ll be vegetable based, I hope he keeps meat, well, at least seafood on the menu. I loved his tuna pizza. The “pizza” is actually a gyoza wrapper he crisped up and then topped with tuna, olives and a quail egg.

I really enjoyed the subtle vermouth based drinks so far. They we went so well with the food.

Pear drink – pear ginger vermouth, lime, mint, Fever Tree ginger beer

 

Starry Kitchen brought a fun presentation for their street crepe. They added a little red cup of fish sauce for dipping. I have always loved Vietnamese food for all the fresh herbs. I hope we see the return of Starry Kitchen soon.

 

With the fried bologna sandwich by Jeremy Fox, I had the lambrusco. It helped cut the richness of the bologna which was actually mortadella, one of my favorite things ever.

 

I was starting to get full so I’m glad we had a sherry drink next. It kept me in a happy place.

Sherry drink – Amontillado sherry, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, orange bitters

 

Chef Sam worked with Mark O’Leary on the cool ancho gordito. As you can imagine, if we were elevating junk food, this surely beats anything from a fast food corporate taco shop. Made with beef cheeks, tomatillo and smoked pumpkin, it was intensely meaty and had the perfect smokey notes.

 

Devon had a special surprise for us…

 

I’ve enjoyed Komodo’s food from their old food truck and food festivals before but haven’t had a chance yet to visit their cafe. After trying their Indonesian corn dog, I thought I should get over there soon. I loved the dragon fruit salad and the corn dog was made out of bison. Definitely not a mystery meat dog! We had this with the Japanese beer, Hitachino. I love the white ale.

 

 

For dessert we had the spooky f’n trifle (this was around Halloween) from Chef Sam and team plus frozen hot chocolate Devon whipped up.

Chef Sam’s Antibellum popup looks amazing and I bet it’ll be as fun as the Future of Junk Food.

 

Chef Samuel Monsour

Antibellum

Tickets form March 27 and 28

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