Culina's glam crudo bar adds to the updated take on Italian dishes

Gardens, the restaurant at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, has had various updates over the years, but no matter what, the indoor-outdoor restaurant always felt boring and dated.

No more. Gardens has been swept away and replaced by the hotel's new contemporary Italian restaurant, Culina. (For those who didn't spend four years in convent school, that's Latin for "kitchen").

You'd never recognize the old place now. Gone are the double tablecloths in favor of sleek bare tabletops under a zeppelin-shaped cloud of mouth-blown glass bubbles. Read more here in this Early Bird peek.

-- S. Irene Virbila

Photo: Chef Vic Casanova in the wine cellar at Culina at the Four Seasons Hotel. Credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times