Review: The new crown jewel of Los Feliz excels at British food. But that's just for starters

Wilde's opened in Los Feliz with seating for 10 tables and quickly drew crowds, especially during an unusually rainy fall. The early buzz centered on “British” comfort dishes such as bangers and mash, Welsh rarebit, meat pies, sticky toffee pudding, scones, and sausage rolls. Over time, the restaurant became more expansive as a dining experience and more specific in its cooking. Spring brought a shift toward lightness, more vegetables, and subtler refinement. Chef Natasha Price, born in England and raised in Los Angeles, built the menu with childhood memories and affinities for British flavors, while also incorporating more restrained meaty cookery and dishes like saffron-dressed crab and a vivid green “fish and chips” sauce.

"When Wilde's opened in late October, taking over a corner space in Los Feliz with room enough for 10 tables, crowds showed up from day one. They huddled in line under the building's eves through an unusually rainy fall. The buzz around the place simmered and concentrated into a single word: "British.""

""British," though, was repeated so often its meanings vacuum-sealed around Wilde's identity, ultimately squeezing more tightly than would prove helpful, or accurate. The restaurant is a different one, and a better one, than it was seven months ago: more expansive as a dining experience, and more specific in its cooking. No one could mistake Wilde's menu now for pub grub. Spring arrived and so did lightness, swells of vegetables and a more subtle sense of refinement."

"Chef Natasha Price, who partnered with her childhood friend Tatiana Ettensberger to create Wilde's, was born in England. The meaty, starchy bromides of British cooking were a part of Price's life even after moving with her parents to Los Angeles at an early age. She hadn't been drawn to making them earlier in her professional career, but family memories and affinities kept surfacing as she"

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