In November, a visiting friend and I snagged two seats at Bar Etoile for a quick dinner before I drove her to the airport. Etoile’s co-owner Jill Bernheimer has also operated Domaine L.A., one of my go-to wine shops in the city, since 2009. When Bernheimer brought over an appetizer we’d ordered — steak tartare dressed in the flavors of a Caesar salad — she leaned in conspiratorially.
“I’m sorry to say we’re out of it tonight,” she began, “but the toast that we usually serve with this dish is made from sourdough by David Wilcox. He’s the chef who sold Hail Mary Pizza in Atwater Village a few years ago. He left L.A. for a while but he’s back and holding some pop-ups around town. You should find him. His bread is incredible.”
A new source for incredible bread in L.A.
I stored away this recommendation until last Friday, when Wilcox, who calls his pop-up Two Rose, was setting up a table late morning in the sunny front window of wonderful Proof Bakery, two blocks from his former restaurant. It took less than a minute to understand how completely correct Bernheimer had been.
Wilcox had baked five types of bread in long and round and rectangular shapes.
Breads at David Wilcox’s bread pop-up at Proof Bakery in Atwater Village
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
“Help yourself,” he said, waving to a cutting board where he’d sliced sample pieces of his country loaf, a hefty boule made with two organic flours milled from hard red wheat varieties: a strain called Yecora Rojo, and a blend known as Type 80 in which the wheatberry is milled whole and then sifted to remove a portion of the bran and germ.
That’s most of the information I absorbed from Wilcox before the first bite of bread blotted him out. The airy crumb melted like pudding. The intense, telltale tang of sourdough rang out, but so much more was going on, in the way of a long-bottled wine transmitting almost too many flavors to count.
I bought one of every bread, with a wedge of Proof’s herbed galette and some good French salted butter from the bakery’s refrigerator.
Wilcox uses only levain, with no added yeast, tailoring the starter to each variation. He mixes four flours, including rye and Rouge de Bordeaux from Tehachapi Grain Project in Kern County, to achieve a baguette with resounding crackle and layered, malty nuttiness. Pan-baked variations such as honey-glazed spelt or squash crusted with pumpkin seeds have denser textures that allow for flavor experimentation and are ideal for sandwiches. A loaf fashioned from whole-grain porridge, scented with ginger and spiked with raisins, becomes dream toast for breakfast.
They’re all roundly fantastic. Wilcox’s country loaf, though, is a new Los Angeles bellwether for rustic-style bread. The city has a handful of excellent bread bakeries, with leaders like Bub and Grandma’s and Jyan Isaac selling retail and supplying many of L.A.’s first-rate restaurants. But on his much-smaller production scale Wilcox is reaching new depths. Slice through the moonscape crust and inhale the crumb: The aromas circle dried fruit, or the perfume of late-season peaches and nectarines at the far edge of ripeness. It’s the miracles of fermentation in their chemical-compound glory. And the custardy texture somehow imprints a more pronounced, wholly pleasant sourness.
The journey back to L.A.
Running a pizzeria, Wilcox worked daily with dough for years. He also baked sourdough for Journeymen, the restaurant he ran last decade in the same space as Hail Mary. But after he moved on in late 2022, he traveled for several years, including spending time in the Bay Area with friends like Mike Zakowski, a bread obsessive who has won medals in international competitions for his baking, and Nicky Giusto, a fourth-generation miller and bread baker who works with Central Milling flour company, based in Petaluma. They rekindled Wilcox’s own obsessions and pushed him to further his mastery.
Returning to Los Angeles, he had no desire to return to running a business full-time. He had a son in his early 20s and now, at 46, he’s dividing his time between Two Rose (named for tattoos in close proximity on his right arm) and working on fiction that draws from his years in the restaurant industry.
Experimentation and evolution are the lifeblood of pop-ups. Which is to say: Check Instagram to know where Wilcox will be. Beyond Proof, Two Rose also showed up this past week at Granada, the MEHKO-licensed home coffee shop that has become an Echo Park sensation.
The outdoor space at Granada in the Angelino Heights section of Echo Park.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Wilcox is also making pizza that he serves on the patio of his Melrose Hill home (near Bar Etoile, to whom he’s no longer selling bread) twice a month or so. I haven’t physically been yet, but a friend delivered me a bronzed, chewy-crisp slice crowned with slivered puntarelle, leeks, anchovies and olives — and yes, the alchemy of pizza-making remains very much in his hands.
Before February is over, he plans to expand to morning pop-ups from his home, making cinnamon buns and crescent-shaped medialuna pastries alongside bread. Customers can hang out and eat; Wilcox will serve complimentary coffee. I’ll bring the good butter for the country loaf.
Eating David Wilcox’s breads with salted beurre de baratte by renowned French artisan Rodolphe Le Meunier.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Speaking of bread …
My review this week delves into the universal human staple from another part of the world. Saqartvelo in Van Nuys is one of the few Georgian restaurants in the L.A. area, run by women who all grew up in Tbilisi. Their menu spans the fundamentals of the cuisine: shape-holding, broth-filled khinkali; fantastic herbaceous stews and dishes built on walnuts, one of the country’s enduring ingredients.
But the Georgian cheesy breads hog the spotlight, as they tend to do. How is their version of everyone’s favorite, the boat-shaped Adjaruli khachapuri? Take a read.
Adjaruli khachapuri at Saqartvelo in Van Nuys
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
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