SUZANNE TRACHT, one of L.A.'s top chefs, known for her delightful take on the classic pot roast and other chophouse fare, has opened her second restaurant six years after she founded Jar. And surprise, it's not in West Hollywood or Santa Monica: It's in Long Beach, a stone's throw from the Convention Center and the Queen Mary.
The diminutive chef was chef de cuisine at Campanile before she set off on her own -- and in fact opened Jar with Campanile chef-owner Mark Peel (she's since bought him out). Tracht is such a talent that the Renaissance Hotel management scouted her for the restaurant in its newly revamped Long Beach locale.
With her unerring instinct for what people want to eat now, she's a natural. Her cooking is strong, yet graceful. Her plates look appealing (which isn't all that easy when steaks and chops are your main ingredients), and though steakhouses from a new generation of chefs have opened right and left, Tracht's version is still both classic and very personal, with enticing first courses and sides added to the mix.
Tracht's might as well be called Jar Two, the menu so faithfully duplicates the original's. But the crowd and the feeling of the place are very different. Whereas Jar attracts a glamorous urban crowd, Tracht's gets a wild mix of conventioneers, hotel guests, airline personnel and local foodies discovering what has long been missing from the local scene: a serious restaurant. If Jar is a destination restaurant, then Tracht's is the worthy understudy to the star.
This chef's got her style and she sticks with it; the intelligent menu at Jar has barely changed since it opened. The new Tracht's benefits from that well-honed repertoire and her exacting execution. Fall in love with the char siu pork chop and the duck fried rice one night, and chances are you'll love it the next time you come. She has consistency down to a science.
But translating such a beloved L.A. restaurant in a hotel context has its challenges. And those seem to be mainly in the front of the house.
The wait staff at Tracht's seems, for the most part, very inexperienced. When you check in at the maitre d's station, even with a reservation, there's a wait for the table to be set up -- even though the place is half empty. A server assures us it's warm enough to eat outside one night because the terrace floor is heated -- then forgets to turn on the heat.
