At Kali in Los Angeles, California Cuisine Without the Pretension

The theory of creative limitation states that by proposing constraints upon a project or an idea, one gains the freedom to become more creative within those constraints. In the case of Kali, a restaurant in the Larchmont neighborhood of Los Angeles that opened in January, that limit is the border that divides California from the rest of the country. Within that fortunate constraint, the partners Kevin Meehan and Drew Langley have constructed a world as colorful, complex and wild as the Golden State itself...

It's too much of a good thing

When you walk into Kali, maybe at the end of a short stroll from the Paramount lot down the street, one of the first things you see, perhaps even before you have registered the dining counter or the kitchen, is the giant grinning pig's head behind glass. It's not the only thing in that refrigerator, of course – there are hanging salamis and other evidence of an active meat program – but that head is especially prominent, hairless but otherwise intact, a corner of its lip raised in what comes across less as a snarl than a sitcom smirk...

Chef Kevin Meehan Rises Above Fine Dining Stereotypes at Kali

Kevin Meehan and Drew Langley met in 2001 while working at L’Orangerie, L.A.’s last temple of old-school haute. Both were 23. Meehan had just driven from Long Island to take a position under another little-known newcomer, Ludovic Lefebvre. Langley was an assistant sommelier; the hospitality career that began at an Applebee’s in Maryland had shifted toward wine when he helped sell the nice selection at Greenblatt’s Deli on Sunset, eventually graduating to the cult Napa wineries and the definitive bordeaux collection on L’Orangerie’s list...

Kali defies clichés — it's just good

It's an oft-spouted cliché that humans eat first with their eyes. In the age of Instagram, though, that bon mot might be taken one step further — sometimes we eat only with our eyes. Follow enough restaurants, blogs or social “influencers” on any app and your feed can become as visually enticing as an eight-course meal, though far less satisfying. At Kali, the newish restaurant on Melrose from former Patina chef Kevin Meehan and former Providence wine director Drew Langley, there is no shortage of beautiful things to feed your iPhone: an artfully assembled crudo speckled with edible flowers and dried citrus, for instance, or a dense quenelle of chocolate cremeux decorated with sprigs of mints...