Tuesday, August 6, 7:00 P.M.
Members $95, guests $120

Joe's Restaurant. A name as ho-hum as this doesn’t usually send gastronomic expectations soaring or set mouths watering. It seems more appropriate for that fallback restaurant you schlep to when every other place is booked. That is, unless chef Joe Miller is wearing the toque.

For 11 years, Miller, a man as unassuming as his name suggests, has continued to dazzle the particular palates of Angelenos. He’s accomplished this by serving up his trademark “soulful” and “heartfelt” California-French fare, as S. Irene Virbila described it in the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Since opening, Joe’s Restaurant has been on just about everyone’s “best” list, including Food & Wine, Gourmet, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. But perhaps the biggest testament to Miller’s cooking is that “other chefs…congregate here just to roll up their sleeves and eat some good food,” as the Wine Spectator’s Harvey Steiman wrote in his own Best of L.A. list.

Cooking alongside Miller once again will be Dan Barber, co-chef of Blue Hill, who worked at Joe’s Restaurant some ten years ago. Like Miller, Barber is a fan of fresh, seasonal food. Or as Gourmet’s Jonathan Gold put it, “Here, the ingredients taste of themselves, exposed as if on a stage.” But make no mistake; there are startling jolts of flavor lurking in Barber’s simplicity. As William Grimes of The New York Times wrote, “Blue Hill lulls you into expecting the usual. And then it pounces.”

Miller began his training at the CIA. After graduating, he headed for Chicago, where he took up residence at Le Perroquet. Later he accepted an apprenticeship in France, studying under Michel Guérard at Eugénie-les-Bains. Back in America, he did tours of duty at The Brentwood Bar & Grill, L’Orangerie, Patina, and Cafe Katsu. In 1993, he opened his eponymous restaurant.

Barber’s résumé is equally impressive. In Paris he cooked at Michel Rostang and Apicius, and in the States at Bouley and Chez Panisse. In 2000, he opened Blue Hill, where he has found his thrill ever since.