Bar Etoile is quickly coming into its own on Melrose Hill
Bar Etoile completely encapsulates the essence of the rapid transformation that Melrose Hill has been undergoing for the past year, and some change. At first I had my doubts about the area’s ambitions to mirror Larchmont Boulevard. The absence of any obvious neighborhood identity, and more importantly, lack of parking, led me to believe any attempt to develop the area would ultimately fail. Having been open for the better part of six months now, Bar Etoile stands as a bold contradiction to my original belief.
Buttermilk poached trout rillettes and house chips.
The hype hasn’t seemed to die down since opening. Getting a reservation on the weekend is nearly impossible, and on weekdays you’ll be faced with the option of a table at 5 p.m. or one at 9:30 p.m.—outside.
Steak frites with bordelaise and Montpellier butter.
The wait staff chuckles with one another and make small talk with patrons as if they’re longtime friends—not servers and guests, but co-conspirators on a leisurely afternoon. There’s ease to the place that feels borrowed straight from a sun-dappled Parisian corner. The south wall is a playful gallery of plates, each with its own design or eccentric little illustration, like souvenirs from a life well traveled but never hurried. Together these details conspire to give Bar Etoile warmth that feels unmanufactured. It’s the kind of restaurant where the line between diner and regular blurs almost immediately, where you’re gently swept into the rhythm of a place that’s not trying too hard to impress you—because it knows it already has.
The menu is broken down into three sections: small, medium and large. We started with the citrus marinated olives and buttermilk poached trout rillettes with house potato chips. The fish, poached gently in buttermilk until it practically sighs under the weight of your fork, is folded into itself with elegance that feels almost accidental. There’s a tang from the buttermilk that lingers, and the whisper of the fresh herbs lets you know that it finally is springtime. It makes you wonder why anyone ever bothered with salmon.
From the medium section we got the Caesar beef tartare. This is not your corner steakhouse tartare. Beef tartare, raw and brash, is flecked with pops of anchovy and showered with Parmigiano and lemon zest. It nods to the Caesar without mimicking it. It’s plated atop Bub’s Bread (these days is a hip L.A. restaurant really complete without Bub’s Bread from Bub and Grandma’s in Eagle Rock?), which could have done with a bit more crackle and a little less chew. Together, it’s a dish that’s playful and a nice lateral move away from your traditional beef tartare.
Caramel braised bok choy and squash puree atop rotisserie chicken.
From the large section we opted for the rotisserie chicken with caramel braised bok choy and squash purée. Bar Etoile’s bird, burnished to a lacquered bronze, arrived perfumed with whatever alchemy of fat, skin and slow rotation they’ve mastered in their kitchen. But it’s the accompaniments that make this dish hum at a higher frequency. Bok choy, coaxed into submission with caramel’s bittersweet allure, offers an unexpected complexity—vegetal freshness softened and darkened at the edges. The squash purée, silky and sweet, is the counterpoint and the glue, tying the dish together with autumnal warmth.
Bar Etoile’s steak frites aren’t a reinvention; they’re a love letter. The steak, crusted just so, wears its sear like a jacket that’s seen many winters—confident, effortless. The Bordelaise sauce, sticky with the depth of good wine and marrow, coats each slice, inviting drag after drag of the accompanying frites, which are textbook in their crispness. But it’s the Montpellier butter, that verdant, garlicky flourish, which turns the dish from reliable to unforgettable. It melts into the meat, herbal and rich. This is bistro food for people who understand that perfection isn’t about invention, it’s about execution.
Bar Etoile isn’t just a restaurant making good on its own promise—it feels like a flag planted in the soil of Melrose Hill’s next chapter. What was once a stretch of street caught somewhere between ambition and anonymity is fast becoming a place with its own gravitational pull. The neighborhood identity remains a work in progress, but maybe that’s part of the charm. Places like Bar Etoile give Melrose Hill the confidence to be something other than a copy of Larchmont—to grow into itself with a certain casual swagger. If this is the blueprint for what’s to come, then my early doubts are long gone.
Bar Etoile, 632 N. Western Ave.
Category: Entertainment
