by Hadley Tomicki
Grub Street Los Angeles
March 28, 2012

Already soft-open and serving over the last few weeks, Jet Tila grand-debuts The Charleston tomorrow night. This is the former Wazuzu chef and big-time bistronomics pumper’s reworking of the Angels space in Santa Monica into another nightlife venue that, like Angel’s before it, plans to have nightly live entertainment by bands. This includes that jerky eighties cover band that must have played everywhere else by now, as well as karaoke, comedy, and get this, dueling pianos (apparently, you can take the guy out of Vegas, but…well, you know). Anyway, what we’re really here for is the food and drink, and here Tila plans a selection of unique comfort eats and spruced-up cocktails, along with a series of pop-ups (an event with chef Evan Kleiman is already in the works we’re told). Come check the menu and bar.

The interior exhales the same vintage supper club cool as its predecessor, with a bar wrapped in kinky white leather (we’re imagining this, but like, at a bar), red booths, and a central portrait of Josephine Baker (please be this one).

The menu features Tila’s take on comfort eats and will include tacos with slow-roasted short ribs and shaved brussels sprouts, fried chicken wings in a sweet chili sriracha, flatbreads of various designs, Welsh rarebit, and five-spice pork belly bao.

Tila will not, as far as we can tell, take Kaya toast back from Susan Feniger. Nor will he introduce a bar program called Tila’s Tequila. Instead, the spot offers beer, wine, and craft cocktails like a vodka-soaked “Kaffir Lime Pie” and a “Jet 75.”

See The Charleston’s full drinking and dining menus.