At The Dutchess, considered one of Ojai, California’s latest eating places, Burmese meals with a West Coast aptitude from chef Noticed Naing takes heart stage with dishes like aromatic lamb biryani, tender tandoori rooster, and freshly baked naan.
Naing arrived in America in 2007 dreaming of life as a musician. To assist himself, he started working in eating places, with early stints at sandwich retailers and burger joints. He finally determined to attend culinary faculty and, upon graduating, landed within the kitchen of Thomas Keller’s Bouchon. He later joined Tallula’s, working first as a sous chef after which government chef. The restaurant inspired him to carry a pop-up dinner together with his mom, the 2 serving an array of family-favorite Burmese dishes Naing had grown up consuming. After that occasion’s success, Rustic Canyon homeowners Zoe Nathan and Josh Loeb supplied Naing partnership in a brand new restaurant enterprise, with free rein to develop his personal menu for The Dutchess. It might be a spot the place he might categorical his id as a Burmese American chef and serve dishes impressed by his Rangoon upbringing.
When Naing was crafting the menu, he knew the basic and beloved Burmese tea leaf salad deserved a spot on the record—and he would give it a particular remedy, utilizing a mixture of regionally sourced elements and others acquired from hundreds of miles away. “[The tea leaves are] seasonally picked from the mountains of Myanmar,” he explains. “I’ve an organization that will get the tea from there, then we ferment it in-house for an entire month.” The earthy, tangy leaves are chopped up and combined with shredded cabbage and lettuce, then topped with a medley of crispy bits together with sesame seeds, peanuts, fried shallots, and garlic. Regionally grown seasonal greens additionally give the dish an surprising twist; for instance, Naing typically consists of radishes and turnips for added texture. In accordance with Naing, nothing goes to waste, because the leftover tea oil from steeping the leaves is used as a ending drizzle on different dishes.
One other dish that’s meant to be shared by the entire desk is the roasted tandoori rooster, which arrives on a mattress of cumin-spiced rice in a terra cotta bowl, alongside pickled shallots and charred inexperienced onions. Naing’s secret weapon? A high-heat tandoor clay oven offers the tender, yogurt-marinated rooster its distinct smoky taste.
As a lot as Naing loves each the tea leaf salad and tandoori rooster, he refers back to the biryani as his signature dish. His distinctive take consists of flaky golden pastry shaped over a filling of delicately spiced basmati rice with yogurt-marinated lamb. Capturing all of the daring flavors and assorted textures on this dish is especially necessary to Naing due to how shut the meal is to his coronary heart. “Biriyani is the dish I eat on a regular basis, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My complete childhood, that’s all I ate,” he says. “I needed to follow biryani for years. You’ll be able to ask my spouse. She is aware of how a lot I cook dinner biryani on a regular basis. I fed each neighbor, dentist, the folks that I really like.”
Naing notes that, in Burma and India, biryani is historically ready by layering rice and different elements in a pot, placing on the lid and sealing it with dough, then cooking the whole dish over coals. Historically, the dough doesn’t should be eaten, however at The Dutchess, Naing has integrated that part into the ultimate presentation and delight of the dish. His model lets diners break by means of buttery layers of pastry, to allow them to expertise the concentrated perfume that comes billowing out. “When the servers stroll, I don’t need the aromatics to be misplaced within the hallway. I don’t need the spices to vanish. That’s why I cowl it with the puff pastry. If you break into it, the steam comes out and into your face,” he explains.
For Naing, whose paternal ancestry is Burmese and whose maternal grandmother is Indian and Muslim, the menu at The Dutchess encapsulates the multicultural eating regimen he grew up having fun with. “The menu is predicated on my life story, my reminiscence of avenue meals. I had this sort of meals on the streets of Burma,” says Naing. “Rising up, I couldn’t eat pork, and my dad’s aspect [of the family] couldn’t eat cow. That’s why I’ve rooster hearts and gizzards on the menu—these are elements of the meat I might eat.”
When their meal is winding down, diners at The Dutchess can cap off their dinner with ingenious desserts by pastry chef Kelsey Brito (previously of bakery and pizzeria Milo+Olive), who serves creations like ardour fruit lassi pie and rose geranium kulfi that function Burmese- and Indian-inspired taste profiles.
The most recent restaurant addition to the Rustic Canyon household, a extensively celebrated collective of eating locations, The Dutchess is a perfect weekend vacation spot for Angelenos—a few 90-minute drive from town. Through the day, the house homes Kate’s Bread, showcasing native baker Kate Pepper’s pastries and freshly baked loaves, earlier than chef Naing takes over and fills the room with Burmese aromas in the course of the evenings. With a roaring hearth, eclectic classic decor, and even a pool desk, the restaurant invitations each locals and out-of-towners to return collectively and keep some time.
