The Pop-up Restaurant

After my Dr. Claw experience, covert food operations are bound to hold special intrigue, so this podcast caught my ear this morning.  It's about a renowned French chef, Ludo Lefebvre, who's created a whirlwind of excitement for Los Angeles foodies with his "guerilla style restaurant" called LudoBites - a temporary establishment that pops up in unassuming locations around LA, serving up high-end fare.

Basically, the restaurant opens in the evenings of a bakery or luncheon, and communicates its changing locations through its website.  It's currently in its fifth iteration, "LudoBites5.0," indicating its 5th location at a place called Gram & Papa's - a favorite LA lunch spot.

Not surprisingly, reservations are nearly impossible to snag. How impossible? Lefebvre's wife remarked to NPR that, "Most restaurants don't announce reservations and have 3,000 people come on at once. I mean, it's really like releasing a concert." Whoa!

And it seems as though this atypical arrangement is mutually beneficial.  NPR explains that, without the overhead costs of a regular restaurant, Lefebvre is able to offer fine cuisine at a much cheaper price; and it goes without saying that such a venture is much less risky for the chef than opening a full-fledged restaurant.  Plus it affords him the freedom to change the menu, location, aura, etc. any time he wants.

Like the underground lobster roll and grilled cheese operations in NYC, the pop-up restaurant has an ephemeral quality that creates a special dining experience: One Ludobites patron told NPR, "It's a great move to make people think that you'll never be able to do this again.  It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

Moreover, Lefebvre's website cites an article from LA Weekly saying “you can’t find it in Directory Assistance, and you can’t have dinner there tomorrow night. It has no address. So in a sense, Ludo Bites, the restaurant of Ludovic Lefebvre, doesn’t really exist.”  Amazing.  Listen to the podcast or read the full article from NPR here.