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Village nightspot wows hundreds on opening night |
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Saturday, 23 January 2010 |
Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
Hundreds of people swarmed Hyde Lounge at Mammoth last Friday to swiftly fill the Village’s first luxury nightlife venue to its 320-person capacity when the doors opened to the public for the first time.
“It was one of those things where I opened the door at 8 p.m., said ‘welcome to Hyde Lounge at Mammoth’ and literally the restaurant was full,” relayed Matt Erickson, Vice President of SBE Restaurant Group, on Saturday.
The Los Angeles-based luxury hospitality and development company partnered with Mammoth Mountain Ski Area to create “a destination within a destination” in the 5,000 square foot space. The third nightlife launch for SBE, it is modeled after its famed predecessor on Sunset Boulevard frequented by celebrities and hipsters.
The space was originally built out to accommodate Boards, which the ski area had contracted with Starwood Designers to open in late December. “The concept for Boards was being driven through the board of directors and folks in Mammoth, when the relationship with SBE came up, and both saw a great opportunity,” explained Communications Director Joani Lynch.
With the change of plans, the horizontal wooden boards already defining the space remain to add a rustic touch to the comfy-chic ambiance punctuated by images from several plasma TVs in the circular space accented by a V-shaped bar.
Erickson estimated that 800 people passed through on opening night to enjoy themselves in the new club, which features eye candy on the inside.
A collage of skis is suspended from a ceiling of exposed conduits and pipes in one area and an array of artistically mismatched pendant lamps dangle above a long butcher-block bar table.
Outside, a wraparound outdoor terrace with in-ground heating invites on the Village’s central plaza.
Nooks in some of the walls simulate individual living rooms or lounge areas where groups of six to 10 can nestle for conversation amidst ’60s era decor of teak chairs, tables and lamps with collage theme artwork.
Best of all is the food, brought to Hyde Lounge at Mammoth by Chef Daniel Elmaleh, who worked for years at Melisse, one of L.A.’s top 4-star restaurants. Elmaleh, of Japanese and Israeli origin, speaks Japanese, Hebrew, French, Spanish and English.
A revelation among the generous selection of small plates he has created was the spicy walnut shrimp in a sriracha glaze with candied walnuts. Some may find it difficult to resist ordering a second plate of the amazing dish but they would risk foregoing other delights, such as the miso cod lettuce cups and grilled short rib tacos with peanut dressing in crispy shells – which our server, Arthur, promised would be a “life changing experience.”
More of a tease is the hamachi with citrus, with grapefruit, oranges, jalapeno and ponzu – as are the onion rings served in perhaps too teasing a portion though deliciously battered with Mammoth Brewing Company ale and bacon ranch.
Last minute opening
Preparations for the opening were about as last-minute as a restaurant can get, even though the deal between chief executive officers Rusty Gregory of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area and Sam Nazarian of SBE had been in the works for a year.
“In my head, it’s fantastic, but it’s actually nerve-wracking,” Erickson described with a laugh.
He said as SBE and ski area staff began furnishing the space within 24 hours of opening, they realized they couldn’t make it work the way they wanted.
“It was a collaboration between restaurants and nightlife, and nightlife is extremely concerned with layout of the floor – or for lack of a better word, feng shui,” he said. “The good thing is that SBE has enough resources in L.A.”
A truck was sent from Mammoth for the five-hour drive to Los Angeles at midnight on Thursday, loaded up by 9 a.m. Friday morning, and sent back to Mammoth by early afternoon for unloading.
If this week’s relentlessly pounding winter weather had arrived during that time, the operation would have been doomed.
“We got very lucky,” Erickson noted. “It very easily could not have worked out because of weather.”
Local workers were hired and trained by SBE employees for the first night, where table numbers, names and prices of dishes and drinks were learned within one hour of opening.
“We brought a lot of veteran staff up from Los Angeles. From an operations standpoint, it was touch and go, but from a guest standpoint, they weren’t affected at all,” Erickson said.
He added that the ski area’s Senior Vice President Bill Cockroft, who oversees all food and beverage operations, was an instrumental factor in the successful partnership launch.
“He was our liaison with Mammoth and has been fantastic since day one,” Erickson said.
“This is a very bright new adventure for us,” Cockroft said in a phone interview. “CBE has proven to show us what we think our visitors have been asking for with respect to the absence of nightlife, entertainment and food.”
Hyde Lounge is open seven days a week from 11 a.m.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 30 January 2010 )
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