An Ambitious Closed Loop Dining Experiment from Andy Doubrava and Tiff Ortiz

This past weekend we were lucky enough to be invited to the informal family meal of Andy Doubrava, lately Executive Chef of Rustic Canyon Wine Bar, and Tiff Ortiz, nomadic chef extraordinaire, at BH’s Leora Cafe. Andy and Tiff have created Slow Burn, a closed loop zero waste residency and upcoming tour that pretty much explodes the brick & mortar restaurant model and rethinks nothing less than our relationship to fine dining and food. Laura Klein and her chef husband, Leor Klein, are feeding the movers and shakers of UTA at Leora Café during the day, and plan to bewitch the rest of us at night.

“Having Tiff and Andy do this is amazing,” Laura says. As the founder of Klein Kitchen, she took on the challenges and benefits of the pandemic—out-of-work chefs recalibrating their lives and relationships to kitchens all over LA, take-out-burn-out, but also newfound independence and time to breathe—and now manages a clutch of star private chefs. The space is intimate, almost like dinner at a good friend’s house, and you find out pretty quickly that there are a lot of really interesting ideas behind Andy and Tiff’s new traveling restaurant.

Carrot Romesco, Sesame Leaf + Coppa +Preserved Melon + Rhubarb +Anise Hyssop

But first, what is closed loop dining?

It’s something we’ve been hearing a lot about lately, not least because over 35% of restaurant food goes into the trash and innovative chefs are searching for ways to move the dial towards more sustainability.

“We’re trying to create an outlet for cooking,” Andy says. “And basically anything that we can do to lessen food waste. A lot of restaurants—most restaurants—are built around just the fact that a lot of the food they buy, their inventory, is going to end up in the garbage. So that’s sad. But also, you’re throwing money away. It’s really hard to take an existing restaurant and change the systems that everybody knows how to work in. But starting from scratch, just us, we can do whatever we want.”

Tiff and Andy say the food they’re making any given night has taken more than a year to prepare because, during the pandemic, they were cooking up ferments, vinaigrettes and tinctures that are just now finding their way onto their menu. Their plan is to pack up these ingredients into a van especially fitted out with shelves, and take the show on the road to different locations. They’ll source fresh produce from nearby farmers markets in each venue, essentially showing up and making magic, come what may. It’s bold. It’s nomadic. It’s improvisational. It’s jazz.

“It’s like when a band goes on tour,” Tiff says. “So it’s a different venue and a different state and a different menu, but it’s the same concept—utilizing all the waste. And Slow Burn implies that our cooking isn’t necessarily the fastest, because we’re working on long-term ferments and charcuterie.”

Heritage Pork +Caviar +Whey Sauce, Weiser Farm Potatoes + Sheep’s Cheese +Nduja Crumble, Warm Pretzel + Cultured Buttered + Mustard Seed

The food that night was interesting and delicious.. A Weiser Farm potato was aerated and topped with ‘nduja crumble and sheep’s cheese. We ate a spicy rainbow pepper sherbet, perfect carrots with romesco, and a delicious coppa, preserved melon, rhubarb and anise on a sesame leaf. Andy brought a succulent cut of Heritage pork with a caviar and whey sauce to the table. It was rich and remarkable at the same time. We each went home with one of Novella Curio’s soy candles and tiny mignardise. The stellar wine pairings were by Domaine and the non-alcoholic drinks were by Han Suk Cho’s Zero Proof. An Heirloom Fashioned with tomato, coriander and marigold was especially inventive, as was the spectacular Melon with melon and oat’s straw cordial.

So far Andy and Tiff’s Slow Burn Residency is a hot commodity. After their residency at Leora Cafe (tickets avail till November 6th), they’ve set up stops at Osito in SF, Autonomy Farms in Bakersfield, Cuyama Buckthorn, Fortified Tattoo in Lompoc, and Bar le Cote in Los Olivos.

We can’t wait to see what this looks like when the metal hits the road. For the Winter Issue, Edible LA is going to be checking in with Tiff and Andy to see how an idea like this holds up in the field, its triumphs and challenges and all the delicious food in between. Stay tuned.

Tickets available here.