PRESS CLIPS

"… L.A.’S BEST RESTAURANTS…" - by Jonathan Gold for Los Angeles Times
"… once you’ve passed through the carved wooden doorway, the staff exudes friendliness and charm. (The Little Door also boasts more age diversity than other hip spots-many diners are actually over 30.) This is hands down the city’s most romantic restaurant, a secret hideaway…"
- by Colleen Dunn Bates for BON APPÉTIT

" RESTAURANTS – the surreal thing.
The Little Door’s cuisine—like its clientele—is beautiful…
Of the many, many surreal restaurants in town, perhaps the most popular is the Little Door, a heaving tropical fantasy…The food is often pretty arranged here, a glossy magazine layout on a plate. Seared tuna, almost raw, is smooth and cool under a paste of crushed green olives. Honeyed duck breast—rare but crisp-skinned, glazed with honey and garnished with stewed figs and couscous—tastes like a house specialty and may be the best dish the Little Door serves.
- by Jonathan Gold for LOS ANGELES TIMES

" MEDITERRANEAN MOOD
Inside, the restaurants feel like a rambling, down-at-the-heels country house. Several rooms serve as dining space, and French doors open onto the courtyard. The windowsills are painted the same bright blue of doors and shutters all over Province. There’s a piano with a guitar resting on top of it in one room. In the back room is a waist-high hearth, where a fire burns under a tiled hood. The long wood tables could come from an old farmhouse. Candles in rustic iron sconces and French canning jars burn everywhere, bathing the rooms in warm light.
We sit in the rear dining room, the one with the fireplace, where we can glimpse the kitchen through the opening framed by café curtains. As we sip our wine (the entire list is available by the glass, from a St. Tropez rosé at $5 to a premier cru Chablis at $20), we find ourselves caught up in the recorded music: haunting North African ballads and the great Mali singer Salif Keita mixed with world beat and dance tunes. The menu -a dozen appetizers and about the same number of main courses-changes almost daily, depending on what the chef finds at the farmers’ market. To start, grilled vegetable terrine is a colorful layering of grilled eggplant, sweet red peppers and zucchini that has set long enough for the flavors to meld beautifully. It’s served with a dab of tapenade."
– by S. Irene Virbila for LOS ANGELES TIMES MAGAZINE

"… we let our gracious and knowledgeable waiter Eric decide for us. He recommended we start with the Moroccan salad, an ensemble of four vegetable salads each highlighted by its own interesting and complex flavors, a blend of fish and potato that were so light, and fluffy they melted in the mouth.
For entrees he suggested the lamb shank with apricot sauce and the filet with Roquefort. The apricot sauce was a wonderful complement to the lamb, giving it a subtle, sweet flavor. Of course if you love a medium-rare filet, and you love Roquefort, this is a delectable combination."
- LARCHMONT CHRONICLE

" With Dusky chandeliers suspended over heavy wooden table that are often covered with the finest assortment of French cheeses and aged wines, The Little Door feels like old provincial Europe. The charming warmth of The Little Door is reflected in entrees that are both pastoral and elegantly presented by the resident chef, who selects organic ingredients daily from the local Farmer’s market. The Menu is printed afresh every evening in accordance with his findings, such as the leeks used in the braised leek, thyme and Gruyere cheese tart, or the cilantro and mint that flavors the charmoula-grilled ahi tuna. Desserts are listed on chalkboard, and they too change according to what’s in season. The fruit tarts are delicious when accompanied by the Moroccan mint tea."
- by Donna Quesada for CIRCLE

WHERE IT ALL BEGIN before THE LITTLE DOOR, there was BO KAOS, PO-NA-NA SOUK, and FLAMING COLOSSUS
" COLOSSAL SOUK-CESS. ‘We’re creative catalysts’, explain nightclub hosts Frederic and Nicolas Meschin. ‘We try to anticipate the future, and provide all the elements—the mystique—and then it’s up to our guests to create magic.’ The brother’s first experience in sociocultural ambience, after arriving from France in early eighty, was the Paris Mexico Café. Opening Flaming Colossus in 1987 with partner Sue Choi, they completely transformed their downtown location. A draconian door policy and a healthy disdain for press and presumed celebrities was combined with eclectic décor, art displays, casual dining, and entertainment ranging from fire eaters to gypsy troubadours—putting them at the forefront of a nightlife scene presumed dead by even most optimistic observers. PO-NA-NA SOUK, their current enterprise in Hollywood, seem likely to surpass FLAMING COLOSSUS, with a sultry Moroccan-style interior and cuisine, and a series of diversions from exotic performances and art to a pool table and oyster bar. The brothers; philosophy is to challenge the establishment: their endeavors are a reaction against a system that ‘wants to stifle aggressive exchanges of ideas and social groups—because it’s easier to control couch potatoes."
– by Henry Eshelman for DETAIL MAGAZINE

" KING OF CLUBS. In L.A.’s new nighttime bohemia, FLAMING COLOSSUS is King of the Jungle. The club’s African music and primitive spirit were last year’s Parisian rage, and while trends from across the Atlantic usually touch down in New York first, French brothers Frederic and Nicolas Meschin partnered with Sue Choi catapulted this one straight into downtown Los Angeles. Inside, their club is like a dark Continent Nell’s—a Congo cabaret throbbing with overgrown plant life, thumping dancers, even a fire-eater.
–by Angela Janklow for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE