Dunsmoor

For most of human history, if you wanted to cook something, you had to build a fire. Last week, we got impatient when our frozen burrito wasn’t hot in the center after two minutes in the microwave. So when you hear about a restaurant that goes out of its way to cook everything over wood, it makes you wonder: is all that effort really worth it? Or is it just a ruse to prop up Big Firewood? 

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When it comes to Dunsmoor in Glassell Park, the answer is an unequivocal yes. From the beefy dry-aged ribeye to the stuffed whole trout to the roasted squash with ricotta, everything at this rustic, Southern-leaning restaurant has been kissed by the coals and tastes all the more spectacular for it. And it's not just the food that the fire improves, either. Housed in a cavernous Art Deco building, the dining room has a soft, amber glow that seems to radiate out from the fire in the open kitchen. Especially on a chilly evening, it’s warm, filled with energy, and off the charts on the hygge scale.

The chef of Dunsmoor used to run Hatchet Hall in Culver City, another rustic, Southern-leaning spot also known for having a big fire pit where they cook everything. The difference is that this restaurant leans even further into the bit: the hearth sits in full view of the dining room, surrounded by cast iron pots and pans and bouquets of herbs drying overhead.

It might sound like a setup straight out of Colonial Williamsburg, but there’s nothing stuffy or pretentious going on here. Although it was the subject of a passionate debate over gentrification when it first opened, Dunsmoor, which serves dinner seven nights a week, has the trappings of a neighborhood standby—the service is inviting, there’s a cozy wine bar in the back that always has room for walk-ins, and the prices, while by no means casual, are reasonable for what you get.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Our favorite dishes here come from the section at the top of the menu, made up of a handful of raw dishes and charcuterie. In fact, we’d be totally content getting the seared albacore with ginger relish, the lamb tartare, the chopped liver with caramelized onions, and some of their life-altering hatch chile and cheddar cornbread along with a glass of Normandy cider, then strolling into the night fully blissed out. And the best part is you can do just that at the first-come, first-served wine bar in the rear, where the shortened menu involves just those greatest hits and the full list of beer and wine (they even give you a complimentary dish of roasted Spanish peanuts when you sit down). 

As for the rest of the menu, everything we’ve tried from the grilled quail with smoky-sweet pepper jelly to the pork and green chile stew with buttery flour tortillas has been uniformly excellent—the ingredients are clearly top-notch, and the wood grill gives it all a subtle, smoky edge. But know this: this food is heeeaaavy. The kitchen goes through brown butter like Harry Styles does pomade. And most of the entrees and sides veer toward rich and salty. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean less is more. For two people, we suggest splitting one of the mains and getting just one or two of the vegetable sides, especially if you’ve already ordered some of the raw dishes to start.

Though the sheer gout-inducing richness of the large plates might make a full dinner here more of a once-in-a-while indulgence, the small plates and wine list alone make this the kind of campfire we want to gather around as often as possible.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Food Rundown

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Sour Milk Cornbread

If you've had the incredible hatch chile and cheddar cornbread at Hatchet Hall, the one at Dunsmoor will taste very familiar, since it’s the one dish the chef brought with him from his old restaurant. Imagine curling up on a cozy sofa if it were made of cornmeal and dreams—that’s the experience of eating this. It's big, fluffy, and super moist, with a crunchy crust from the skillet it's baked in. Also, it’s smothered in an obscene amount of honey and butter for good measure.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Baby Albacore

Who would have guessed that a restaurant with a giant wood oven front and center would make one of the best plates of raw fish we’ve had all year? This stunner involves thick slices of seared rare albacore, spoonfuls of olive oil and bright ginger root relish, and a showering of crispy fried shallots, chives, and lemon zest. Put it at the top of your must-get list.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Lamb Tartare

Between the creamy smoked tuna sauce, the fresh mint, the raw lamb, and the fried sunchokes (which crunch like potato chips), this tartare has a lot of bold flavors that somehow fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Along with the albacore, this is the raw dish we’ll always insist on ordering.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Baked Broadbent's Country Ham

There’s a giant rosy pink ham behind the bar at Dunsmoor, and every time someone orders this dish, one of the cooks goes over and slices off some thin sheets of ham, and piles them on a plate with a smear of sweet cane syrup butter and warm bread. The ham is from Kentucky, where a lot of amazing ham is made. The bread is from Bub & Grandma’s next door, where a lot of amazing bread is made. The butter is from… well, just know the butter is amazing.

Chopped Chicken Liver

There are a lot of restaurants out there serving chicken liver as an appetizer, some might even say too many. But this rich, creamy version with bits of bacon and rosemary proves why you shouldn’t treat chopped liver like, er, chopped liver. The best part might be the sweet, sticky caramelized onion jam on the side. Spread them on a slice of Bub & Grandma’s bread and go to town.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Baby Scallops

These tender, mini-marshmallow-sized raw scallops are dressed “delicatessen style,” which means a combination of minced red onion, capers, fresh dill, lemon zest, and smoked trout roe. Safe to say if there was a deli in LA that served this, we’d be ordering it by the pint. Eat this alongside a crisp white wine to transcend into a higher plane of existence.

Pickled & Preserved Vegetables

One of the lighter dishes on the menu, this assortment of house-pickled veggies is a good way to prepare your body for the righteous wave of salt and animal fat to follow. On our last visit, there were pickled beets, okra, carrots, squash, cucumber, and a heap of crunchy sauerkraut.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Wood-Roasted Pacific Oysters

We have a soft spot for roasted oysters and, despite looking like they were blasted in the fires of Mount Doom, the ones at Dunsmoor check off all our boxes: juicy, plump, buttery, and incredibly savory. The secret weapon here is the bottarga mixed with the butter—it adds a rich low-tide funk that bumps up the umami without overshadowing the oyster flavor. The bed of wood chips these are served on is a little extra, though. What is this, the floor of an old saloon?

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Rainbow Trout

Listen, we’ve only tried to cook a fish over fire once, and that same camping trip ended with a flooded tent and a sprained ankle. So we appreciate the skill it takes to not only grill a whole deboned rainbow trout over an open flame, but also have it be tender, flaky, and evenly cooked. The one at Dunsmoor comes stuffed with chanterelle mushrooms and toasted pine nuts, then doused with a heck of a lot of brown butter. File this under A Very Nice Piece of Fish.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

Beef Ribeye

We love that Dunsmoor doesn’t get too fussy with its entrees, with this thick dry-aged ribeye being a prime example. It’s seasoned with little more than salt and pepper and cooked to a spot-on medium rare, with a tremendous beefiness and slight bacon-y flavor from the dry aging. At $89 for a 32-ounce steak, it’s a pretty great deal, too. The roasted bone marrow and charred lemon on the side act like knobs on a beefy boombox, allowing to you crank up or dial back the richness as you like.

Braised Greens

Oh look, a vegetable. That shouldn’t be too heavy, right? But wait. This is Dunsmoor, where the collard greens are cooked with a ridiculous amount of salted pork. Don’t get us wrong, they are delicious, but the potlikker definitely toes the too-salty line. The good news is that each bowl of greens comes with a bottle of chile pepper vinegar, which you should shake liberally over the top.