Orla At Michael Mina’s newest restaurant the meal begins with a wooden box, wherein nine spices provide a hint of what’s to come: At Orla, the celebrity chef’s interpretation of his Egyptian heritage weaves these and other aromatics into kebab platters, tableside baklava sundaes, charcoal-grilled octopus, caviar-topped fateer and chicken-stuffed dolmas with an ocean view in the Regent Santa Monica Beach hotel. Mina, who now operates roughly 30 restaurants including Glendale’s Bourbon Steak, grew up in a house bustling with parents and aunts and uncles. Born in Egypt but raised in the U.
S. since the age of 2, Mina always wanted to turn his culinary focus to this upbringing and the flavors of the Middle East and Mediterranean. “It was always something in my mind and in my heart that I knew I was going to do: a concept that really went back to my roots,” Mina said.
“My mom had such a big influence on my cooking — both why I enjoy cooking so much, and a lot of how I cook — but I also wanted to do it a little later in my career, when I had a little more depth.” Roughly a decade ago he built a test kitchen for the Mina Group, and it was here that he and his team began dabbling; he was so reinvigorated that it set a cookbook in motion. “My Egypt: Cooking from My Roots” took seven years and debuted earlier this month, informing Orla as it went, with roughly 80% of the new restaurant’s dishes overlapping with recipes from the book.
Six visits to Egypt in the .
