On special occasions and holidays, we want great food and we want fun. For chef Attila Bollok at Barton G. Los Angeles, every day is a celebration because all the dishes are visually extravagant or slyly clever. In his kitchen at Barton G., Bollok showed me how to prepare his signature dish, lobster Pop-Tarts. The perfect dish for special events and holiday entertaining.
In the busy kitchen, Bollok is a chef who keeps his cool even when he and his staff are preparing food for as many as 400 dinners. Moving quickly around the small space, he always refers to his colleagues as “chef” and always says “please.”
That temperament might have come from his Hungarian grandmother who taught him how to cook when he was a young boy. But his good-natured cool also comes from the confidence born of solid training with culinary greats. As a teenager he did an apprenticeship at La Caravelle. He learned fundamentals at the French Culinary Institute (renamed the International Culinary Center). He worked side by side with David Burke at Fishtail and Comme Ça and Scott Conant at Scarpetta.
When Barton G. Weiss, the creator of the original Barton G. in Miami’s South Beach, was looking for a classically trained French chef who could help him launch a restaurant in Los Angeles, Bollok was ready for the challenge.
When Bollok walks into his kitchen at Barton G. Los Angeles, he puts on his apron and a party hat.
In his kitchen there are the usual stock pots, knives, cutting boards and utensils. Look above the stainless steel counters and you will see brightly painted metal pelicans and green mini-Tiki statues staring back at you. Next to his chef's knives and ladles there are rows of giant forks, swords and candy-colored Duralit toasters.
Out in the dining room, complimentary bread arrives at the table looking like DayGlo doughnuts. The Diamonds Are Forever cocktail comes with a liquid nitrogen vodka popsicle stirrer. The Rakes and Ho salad is plated in a mini-wheelbarrow. The Great American Steak arrives with a 2-foot-tall fork stabbed into its properly charred flesh. If you like sweets and you order the Marie Antoinette’s Head -- Let Them Eat Cake, a mannequin’s head arrives with a 2-foot-high cotton candy hairdo on a plate of mini-cakes and ice creams.
Yet even when creating food with a theatrical flair, Bollok is a serious chef who talks passionately about locally sourced ingredients and keeping food interesting with a play of textures and balanced flavors.
Bollok enjoys the way his dishes balance whimsy with quality ingredients. His lobster Pop-Tarts look like plump versions of the jam-filled toaster Pop-Tarts kids eat for breakfast. But cut them open and out tumble moist lobster pieces coated with luxurious herb-scented béchamel, an adult treat, for certain, and a lot of fun.
Barton G.’s Lobster Pop-Tarts