Once upon a time, L'Ermitage was the anonymous hostelry where paparazzi-plagued Los Angelenos went way undercover-a hermitage, so to speak, for the plastic surgery-obsessed. But two years ago, the hotel underwent its own $60 million makeover, and these days, L'Ermitage is a retreat of a decadently different sort. It's California's most talked-about secret hideout, a hotel that Sue Zesiger of Fortune called "travel nirvana." In keeping with these luxuries is The Restaurant at L'Ermitage, which will treat you "like royalty," according to Zagat. And whether you're royalty of the European or Hollywood kind, or not royalty at all, chef Joseph Antonishek will tempt you with his Asian-inspired European fare. Critics love it, too-L'Ermitage received two out of three toques from Gault-Millau, and was pronounced "magnificent" and "lovely" by Zagat.

Antonishek brings a New York culinary pedigree of the most exalted sort to his West Coast haven. A graduate of the CIA, he launched his professional life in earnest in Bobby Flay's celebrated kitchens at Mesa Grill. There, he worked his way up from line cook to sous-chef in a mere 11 months. He worked under Charlie Palmer at the late Chefs and Cuisiniers Club, and then at JUdson Grill. And in 1997, Antonishek was initiated into the delicious paradoxes of luxuriously ascetic cuisine when he became saucier at that temple of spare elegance, Jean Georges.

Antonishek went west to serve as executive chef at Pino Luongo's West Hollywood outpost of Coco Pazzo. Then he was lured away to L'Ermitage. When we were scheduling this dinner, Antonishek told us that when he worked at Mesa Grill, Bobby Flay would often send him to the Beard House to volunteer for other chefs. This month marks the first time his own name is on the marquee. He can't wait, he told us. Neither can we.