Beginning February 7, Chinatown restaurant Firstborn will move away from its a la carte menu, instead offering a four-course prix fixe for $68 a person. The new menu opens with a choice of wagyu beef tongue carpaccio, chilled artichokes in mushroom dashi, and trout tartare, followed by duck sausage and dry-aged Liberty duck. Dessert has options that include a vanilla sponge cake cradling red bean paste, a hazelnut dacquoise layered with lime leaf curd, and a ginger cookie. Favorites from the current a la carte menu, including mapo tofu with roasted sweetbreads and fried chicken, will be available as add-ons. The bar will be a la carte only featuring the same dishes offered on the prix fixe menu.
A star-studded afternoon tea at the Maybourne Beverly Hills
The latest iteration of the Maybourne’s afternoon tea, Prêt-à-Portea, pays tribute to iconic red carpet outfits from over the years. Look out for nods to Timothée Chalamet’s butter-yellow Givenchy suit from the 2025 Academy Awards in cookie form alongside Jeremy Strong’s iconic Loro Piana bucket hat from the 2025 Golden Globes. The afternoon tea includes a glass of Champagne, sandwiches, scones, sweets, and both hot and iced teas. Prêt-à-Portea is available to book now for $140 per adult and $65 for children 12 and under.
An editor at the newly revived Gourmet eats around Los Angeles
Go into the jungle at California’s last Rainforest Cafe
SF Gate’s Karen Palmer takes a deep dive into California’s last Rainforest Cafe, located in an indoor mall in Ontario Mills. The once-growing empire of animatronic-filled restaurants has dwindled over the years, but the nostalgia lives on with Nile the Crocodile still at the entrance to greet guests, and an elephant with flapping ears.
One of Los Angeles’s most creative chefs, Anthony Wang, has opened his first restaurant in the former Pok Pok space in Chinatown. The name, Firstborn, is a nod to Wang being the first person in his family to be born in the U.S. At the restaurant, Wang cooks his interpretation of Chinese American cuisine, informed by his parents’ history in Beijing, summer trips across China, and his childhood in Georgia and Miami. A mapo tartare, served cold, is inspired by Wang’s days of being a line cook in Boston, while fried Chongqing chicken pays tribute to the Southern fried chicken of his childhood. Kenzo Han, an alum of Steep After Dark, helms the bar program, serving drinks like an osmanthus and fermented rice sour alongside tea-infused cocktails.