Indochine Offers a Menu to Match Its Good Looks

Early last year, the New York restaurant and bar Le Colonial captured a young, trendy crowd with a romantic vision of French colonial Vietnam at its West Hollywood outpost. The food never quite lived up to the setting though.

Now Indochine, New York’s hip Vietnamese restaurant, has gone bicoastal too, moving into the former Monkey Bar on Beverly Boulevard. Designed by Thomas O’Brien of Aero Studios in New York, the Los Angeles Indochine is a coolly minimalist space, with dark green leather booths and a painted frieze of stylized banana leaves. Stubby vintage ceiling fans from old French trains stir up a whisper of a tropical breeze.

Indochine, however, isn’t just getting by on its good looks: The kitchen is turning out some very good dishes. Partners Jean-Marc Houmard, Michael Callahan and Huy Chi Le have brought out five cooks from the New York location to prepare rouleau de printemps (Vietnamese spring rolls), beautifully fried shrimp stuffed with asparagus and mushrooms, grilled marinated trout scented with pungent Asian basil, and huge grilled prawns to wrap in lettuce leaves with sprigs of mint and basil.

Once the place catches on, the kitchen plans to stay open until midnight.

* Indochine, 8225 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; (213) 655-4777. Open for dinner nightly. Major credit cards accepted.