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Marianna Caldwell’s favorite seat in the house is gone, but its removal brought Cassia one step closer to reopening the dining room.
The sommelier and general manager of the Southeast Asian restaurant loved to perch at the seafood counter, where she’d observe cooks shucking oysters and readying crab claws while she people-watched and felt the hum of conversation bounce off the industrial-modern ceiling. But for nearly a year Cassia’s seats at raw bar and every other indoor table sat vacant as restaurants and bars reeled and pivoted throughout COVID-19. Now, at the start of the yellow tier, Cassia and other restaurants that have waited to reopen their dining rooms are unveiling renovations, improvements, new menus and even entire concept changes that their teams spent weeks or months planning.
West Hollywood’s EP Reopens With Totally Different Menu and Stark New Interior
New chef Nicholas Russo oversees a modern American menu at the popular WeHo scene spot
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Jakob Layman
One of West Hollywood’s most popular restaurants, E.P., reopens tonight after nearly 14 months offline. The menu has been completely overhauled with help from Botanical Hospitality Group’s (S.O.L.) culinary director, Monty Koludrovic and wife/pastry chef Jaci Koludrovic, who hail from Australia with acclaim and years of experience. Nicholas Russo (previously chef at Nightshade and Ink) is the new head chef, while they’ve brought on sommelier Richard Hargreave (Majordomo/Momofuku) to finishing laying out the new E.P. as we know it. That means the Southeast Asian menu from opening chef Louis Tikaram and subsequent chef Sabel Braganza has been replaced with something the restaurant is calling calling “modern American fare.”