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Daily Dish

Bastide and chef Sydney Hunter III make it official

By Betty HallockDeputy Food Editor 
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Bastide, the Melrose Place restaurant owned by fickle commercial director Joe Pytka, announced that Sydney Hunter III, who took over the stoves after Joseph Mahon departed in December, is executive chef. This is, if I’m counting correctly, the restaurant’s sixth chef.

Former Bastide chefs include Alain Giraud, Ludo Lefebvre, Walter Manzke, Paul Shoemaker and the above mentioned Mahon.

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Hunter helped open Bastide in 2002 as sous-chef under Giraud and remained until 2008, when he left to work at Fraiche in Santa Monica under then chef-partner Jason Travi. He also has worked with Lefebvre at his pop-up restaurant concept LudoBites.

‘Sydney will execute an elegant menu in a casual atmosphere working with seasonal ingredients,’ says Bastide’s announcement from manager and sommelier Dario Dell’Anno.

-- Betty Hallock

Daily Dish
Betty Hallock

Betty Hallock is deputy Food editor at the Los Angeles Times. She has co-written four cookbooks, including “Bäco: Vivid Recipes from the Heart of Los Angeles,” “Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen” and “Baking at République.” She started her journalism career at the Wall Street Journal and Scientific American in New York, worked on the L.A. Times’ Business desk, and was interim food editor at Los Angeles Magazine. Hallock also helped launch a food and nutrition vertical for wellness app RoundGlass. She’s a graduate of UCLA and New York University.

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