Joshua Skenes the three Michelin star chef at Angler and Saison has announced that he is to start an $800-per-person dinner series from his home in the Hollywood Hills.
The price tag may put some people off, but the dinner will consist of about 12 courses, which Skenes says will change daily or even hourly. Skenes will forage and hunt almost all ingredients for the dinner but diners are welcome to bring any ingredients they wish. The price includes beverage pairings but diners are also welcome to bring any bottle they wish.
“People love to throw darts at me about the price,” he said. “You get what you pay for. When you add everything up, it’s more or less the same price as going to Urasawa.”
Skenes became the first American chef to gain three Michelin stars for cooking over fire at his San Francisco restaurant Saison, he later opened Angler in Los Angeles before stepping away from the restaurants to open Skenes Ranch in Washington which operates as a hunting and fishing lodge with foraging and grilling master classes.
With his entrepreneurial activities taking hin away from the kitchen Skenes was desperate to get back to what he truly loves – cooking. When Angler opened he said he “didn’t really do anything,” with the bulk of his job consisting of “R&D” and mentoring his sous chefs.
“I need to get back in the kitchen and cook with my own hands,” the LA Times reports him saying. “At all my restaurants, the teams run the place. Any chef with multiple restaurants doesn’t do the cooking. That veil was lifted a long time ago.”
“I haven’t been in the kitchen for so long. I’m craving that rigour.”
The series is called ‘Skenes’ Place’ and will a “better version of or the next evolution” of the old Saison. Service will run Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights starting on December 12th. The only way to get a booking is on skenesplace.com and the chef says he will select quests from the reservation requests. “If they seem normal, they’ll be invited,” he said.
“Even though the food is going to be super-precise and there is a lot of work that goes into it,” he said, “I just want people to come by and eat dinner.”
