In Bed Together: Art & Bites from Ludo Lefebvre at Royal/T

 

Royal/T
8910 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
310-559-6300
http://www.royal-t.org/http://www.royal-t.org/

Currently showing at Royal/T is a group exhibition curated by Jane Glassman entitled "In Bed Together".  At the Novewmber 20th opening Ludo Lefebvre cooked, champagne, wine and sake flowed while food & art lovers co-mingled.

Ludo's ballyhoo'd pop-up restaurant Ludobites will have a much awaited and planned for short run at Royal/T in December. Friday night gave event goers a titillating preview of what's to come.

 

Royal/T knows how to host an engaging event. At every event I have attended, there has at least one interactive element to the festivities. The most intriguing this evening was Ludo and assistant cooking up inspired snacks in a plexiglass box while a line of party goers snaked through the box picking up snacks as they gawked and drooled.

Making thin buckwheat pancakes.

 

Adding goat cheese and some bacony goodness. 

 

Folded over, these turned out to be a savory blintz.

 

Ludo dirties his hands mincing and dicing pineapple and I don't remember what else for a delicious raw scallop dish.

 

 Tidbits for partygoers tummies were also coming out of the Royal/T kitchen,

French maid cosplay waitresses passed paper water cooler cones of French fried potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Light, crunchy and classically delicious.

 

Also passed through the crowd from the Royal/T kitchen were beef wrapped asparagus and caramelized onion crepes.  The crepe squares were delicious, but the beef wrapped asparagus left something to be desired in the flavor department. Perhaps the beef should have been marinated. I once copied Tuna Toast's recipe for beef wrapped asparagus and it was off the hook flavorful, it set a rather high benchmark.

 

One of my favorite pieces of the exhibit, an installation. All separate pieces of  paper, each with a piece of a gorilla's body hanging from above when assembled together representing the entire ape.

 

A beautiful riff on Manet's Olympia.

 

D wondered if this was a parody of Jann Howorth and Peter Blake's work, creators of the Grammy winning Sgt. Pepper's LHCB album cover.

 

Echoing the joy and irreverence of Royal/T itself.

 

"What I miss most is your incredible smile."

The series below is from the screening room. I call this in my head "The Dildo Progression", but I don't really know the name.

 

 

 

 

I found this striking.

 

Poignant.

 

And this reminds me that all art, like all food, is not meant to be understood by all people.  But that doesn't mean we cannot enjoy.