The Big Baby
Tucked into the small Victorian home of the rear left corner in the Alpine Courtyard in Chinatown, Baby Bistro finds welcome fellow travelers with neighbors Perilla and Baker’s Bench with its “bistro of sorts” – all three take cues from long-standing conventions and re-cast them with fun and clever but absolutely serious takes on the source material. FTCer @mzonelli wrote in the “May 2025 Rundown” thread that the Big Baby, as I’ve been calling it lately, is a “type of restaurant LA is desperately in need of - creative, unpretentious, accessible, but feels new.”
I’ll echo a lot of that here: The cookery is creative, and it isn’t flashy, fusiony, made-for-Instagram-or-Tik-Tokky. We might debate the level of pretension and accessibility (compared to who or what; on what ground; accessible in terms of concept, taste, and/or price? I’ll come back to that…), but the restaurant absolutely feels new.
My take is long overdue, as I had a lot of ideas right after my visit there in May. I was reminded of them on my MTL eating weekend, where I almost ate exclusively at bistros and wine bars (of sorts).
Like those establishments, Baby Bistro solicits the inviting and warm atmosphere of a neighborhood spot by the tone of its venue: A renovated Victorian-style home done up in a warm-toned wood conspicuously absent of hard corners and lines, austere concrete surfaces, and too-loud music presented either through furniture-grade audio components or concealed speakers. Indeed, the volume level inside of the restaurant was two ticks above hushed, even as we slinked by the pass into the semi-private dining room nearest the back patio.
Benches run along the walls, accommodating about ten diners total, depending on the party at the largest table, which is where my girlfriend and I were sat. Presented with the menu, I almost felt confronted by its brevity – @PeonyWarrior’s photo from the May 2025 thread suffices, as it’s nearly identical to June’s menu.
“Turnip, tofu”? What did that look like? How did those two ingredients mingle? I understood the kind of service here was to be collaborative, conversational with the server, but I was reaching for a little bit more data to help me situate what I was about to order. As we were to rely on our server almost solely for expectations, the advisement here circled rather than led; we did get more details about some of the dishes, which enticed us – the tofu was silken from Meiji; noodle-width strips of squid mixed with cucumber. But we had no idea about the sauce on the fish, nor the portion of the special or the steak.
I’ll come back to my qualms with the menu, but for now, let us proceed with the food. We were prepared to order the whole menu, and that we did and then some: We opted for the special that night, too, which was a sausage affair.
Skipping the wine pairing (which may have been a mistake for the bill), seven dishes for two seemed a plenty good amount of food, maybe too much.
Onion Bread · Country Terrine
Wish I’d written this earlier so I’d remember the sauce underneath the broccolini, because that was the best thing on this menu. We did skip the liptauer because of my lactose intolerance, much to the compromise of my girlfriend, who is a cheese fiend. Bread: ok, served plain; would have been nice with the steak, but on its own, some kind of low-commitment spread would have been nice. Country terrine: Fatty. Nice.
Turnip, tofu · Cucumber, squid
Turnip and tofu didn’t land with me; the tofu and lightly tart and sweet raspberries in the sauce were playing nicely on their own, and while I appreciated the concept, but the turnip was very misplaced for me. Maybe my sense-memory was running up against tofu and the heavy western-style, cumin-forward pickling flavor on the turnip, but I wasn’t taken with this one.
In this spot in the meal, the cucumber & squid was the best thing. Top 3 of the dinner next to the special and the steak. Seasoning was spot on and the play on East Asian profiles and combinations was fun. But I thought the squid was cut too inconsistently. The treatment on the squid alone was probably better than the steak.
Special: House-made lamb chorizo sausage · Sea Bass
In total we’re having three mains; the special was likely a step too far portion-wise. But I loved the special, much more so than the sea bass, whose sauce was too heavy-handed: It was almost like it had too much hoisin. Of course sea bass could take it, but I don’t remember the actual fish having a lot of work done to it to play with the sauce. Could be wrong.
Break, and a note about plate service
We’ve got one more before dessert comes, and we appreciated the breather in the eating. But I’d like to take this opportunity here to note that we would have really appreciated new plates after the fish. Our small dinner plates were completely sauced up. You might say the whole idea is to get in there and mix all the sauces up and go ham, but we didn’t feel invited to do that – Baby Bistro is pared down and laid back, but also dressed up; creative and attentive in execution and concept, but also nonchalant. These kinds of dualities run through the decor, the service affect, and the entire personality of the restaurant. So much work goes into the sauces I really thought it a shame to just swirl it around on my plate with the dregs of finished dishes.
Coulotte steak
Great protein here, and that brothy sauce was super savory and delicious. Loved the touch on the wood ears. I would have absolutely been bummed to have missed this had I known in advance about the wood ears.
Dessert: Pine nut, rhubarb
Exceedingly attractive pine-nut cookie, but when it came out to the table, I cocked my head. “Rhubarb?” There was more cookie and cream than rhubarb, and the sweetness overwhelmed any notes of it that might have been running through it. My girlfriend liked it much more than I, but thought the amount of pine nuts in the cookie was excessive. She has also reminded me that my recollection was not hers, and that I actually really liked the cream topping.
Final thoughts
I’m glad Baby Bistro is here, and we had a very, very good meal, and having ordered everything the first time here, I know I’ll feel less trepidation skipping some dishes and perhaps ordering two of other.
At dinner’s end, I had three main contentions: The menu, the sauce, and, I admit this just might have been an oversight, diner attention.
-
Menu woes. I hope this style of menu writing will be updated and revised as the restaurant continues to develop. Too-vague descriptions, and the almost arbitrariness of the add ons, works against helping diners make decisions that they might feel will be worth their studying efforts and wallets. One could imagine someone ordering everything almost out of fear that they’d miss out on something that was truly special. Without some more description, it’s hard to conceptualize what we’re working with, so it feels less like we can sub than we ought to follow the restaurant’s advisement to order it all. Chef Miles Thompson has insisted it’s not a tasting menu, a point echoed by our server, and we got an affected acquiescent nod when we asked about “substitutes.” So, it’s laid back, but the best way to do it is to order everything; it’s not a tasting menu, and you can sub, but it really isn’t a sub if it’s not a tasting menu or prix fixe, but the menu’s been sequented in such a way that has a narrative, so there’s the undercurrent of possibly disrespecting the chef and restaurant’s concept on the whole if you do. So, a prix fixe, but not really, and we could sub if we want, but only if we wanted to. From multiple non-committal angles, diners could be encouraged to order it all, and quietly discouraged from going their own way. The soft-edged communication here was more confounding than annoying. But to that: We dropped a good amount of cash with drinks and food here, so while the flavors might be accessible, prices less so.
-
Plate service. Couldn’t tell you how many times I got new plates in Montreal; there were maybe three changes. Baby Bistro could do with at least one switch-out to account for extra saucy affairs.
-
Allergy check-in. Total nitpick, and I’m sure this isn’t a regular thing: We made the reservation online, and I’d noted my girlfriend’s allergies. These weren’t verified by either the host or our server throughout our time here.
Would love to come back once there’s a bit more variety in the menu, and I’m eager to see where the team will take this exciting addition to Los Angeles dining.