Buvons Verified listing

After experimenting in the kitchen (while also hosting a stellar coffee popup), Buvons Wine Bar, the restaurant expansion from the neighboring Buvons Wine Shop, has opened under the watchful eye of owner and chef Alicia Kemper. With a sleek, French-meets-Californian menu that beautifully highlights the seasonal and the vegetal, it is a reflection of a Long Beach small-business owner with the resilience to move forward.

Perhaps there is no better representation of Buvons Wine Bar than Chef Alicia’s stellar sunchoke dish featuring different textures of the root vegetable. A beautifully savory sunchoke purèe. Sunchoke chips. Brunoise of sunchoke—fried and tossed in brown sugar, smoked paprika, and cayenne—that has just enough moisture in it to make a bacon-like quality. All surrounded by a ring of radicchio tossed in a house-made vinaigrette with pickled pomegranate.

On top of that? Buvons Wine Bar has quietly been doing a brunch on the last Sunday of every month. And it is nothing short of French AF in the best way possible, melding French bistro quality with Californian sensibility in a way no other space in the city does. And it returns again this Sunday, Nov. 30; for tickets, click here. The menu? Gougère with trout mousse. French toast with crème anglaise and candied oranges. Poached egg and polenta with winter squash and mushrooms. And—why not?—tiramisu

We’re talking a world where mushroom and comté quiches and provençal chicken sit next to banana bread with whipped crème fraîche and insanely delectable quince tarte tatin.

Written and photos by Brian Addison.

For the full feature on Buvons, click here.