The food is by Katsuya Uechi, the designer is one Phillipe Starck, a name you will know and recognize if you've ever stepped into Sam Nazarian's other restaurants like The Bazaar by José Andrés. Other Katsuya's in LA are known celebrity magnets (if you consider a Kardashian a celebrity). Now in the space formerly occupied by Hush, Katsuya by Starck has opened in Laguna Beach.
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The grand opening, hosted by Irvine BMW of all things, happened Wednesday night, but it was by invitation only (no, I wasn't invited, nor would have I gone if I was). I did, however, check with the nice person who answered their phone on Tuesday about their official public debut. She had to speak loudly over the construction noise I heard in the background, but she told me that July 8th's the date they'll be open for everyone else.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.