Visitors to Palm Springs often fall hard for the modernist architecture and Frank Sinatra fabulousness. But Michael Beckman chose instead to open his new foodie destination in the 1920s Spanish-Deco El Paseo building and update it by nearly a century with monolithic concrete panels and 27-foot-high cathedral-ceiling trusses. Manhattan’s SOMA Architects brought in sleek light fixtures by Beirut-based PS Lab (likely on the recommendation of Lebanese restaurateur and co-owner Joseph Mourani), which makes the contemporary tableware by Heath Ceramics positively glow. Beckman, who studied at the Paul Bocuse Institute in Lyon and honed his cooking as a private chef in Beverly Hills, via a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Burgundy, has developed a menu of local, seasonal ingredients - admittedly no great challenge in America’s Sunniest City - that entertains eclectic proteins like squab, octopus, lamb sausage and oxtail, incorporated into light pastas and pizzas. Or you can share a whole chicken or rib-eye with the table.
