A well-liked neighborhood restaurant has been given new life.
Taste Wine-Beer-Kitchen, a small space attached to a gourmet grocery store, was a stalwart in the Bluff Heights area from 2015 until 2020, when it shut down during the pandemic.
As of last month, it’s been revived, with a curated wine selection and a new seasonal menu.
“We’re pretty excited to be back open. I think with the menu concept and the changes that we’ve put in place, it’s going to be fun for the community,” said Erin O’Hagan, owner of Taste and the neighboring Olives Gourmet Grocer.
Taste’s space was originally used for small events and as a storage room for Olives until one day O’Hagan and chef Brad Neumann decided they wanted to make better use of it and open a spot for locals to get a nice meal.
“It was just time to turn this space into something more,” O’Hagan said.
For five years, the New American restaurant was open six days a week and was fairly popular. But at the start of the pandemic, they shut down. Other restaurants survived by pivoting to to-go orders, but Taste’s menu didn’t adapt well to take-out. O’Hagan decided it was best to close, and Taste once again became an extra space for Olives.
After a few years, O’Hagan and Neumann dipped their toe back in by starting to host monthly wine dinners in the Taste space. They featured five to six-course meals usually crafted around a small selection of wines or showcasing a single ingredient, such as a corn dinner that even featured a corn ice cream for dessert.
Every month at these wine dinners, people would ask if Taste would ever reopen. O’Hagan and Neumann never seriously considered it until they met Chad Alger, who was looking to open a wine bar.
“Beyond just being knowledgeable about the wine world and what’s going on, I truly do love wine, and I want to bring that joy to everybody else,” Alger said.
Once Alger was aboard as the sommelier, the team reopened on July 17.
“I don’t think in life, you get too many second chances,” Neumann said. “This is our chance to be the best possible restaurant that we can. We’re not really changing the core of what it is. We’re just making everything better on every single level, and that includes the food.”
Before COVID, Neumann tried to “push boundaries a little bit more” with the food he was making. The menu after reopening has been simplified to put the food and wine on a level playing field.
“They fit together like a glove in so many ways, not just like this dish has to have this wine, but multiple pairings,” Neumann said.
Alger looks for wines from all over the world that would complement the food Neumann makes but also stand on their own.
“The fun part, too, is finding those wines from all over the world that really fit the community, what they’re asking for, and kind of introducing them to some new things that they may not be aware of,” Alger said.
The entire menu is based on seasonality. Current menu offerings include summer bucatini pasta for $18, shrimp la plancha for $24, and burrata and heirloom tomatoes with grilled bread for $16. The goal is to create “summer on a plate,” Neumann said.
So far, customers have been excited to see Taste reopen.
Alger gave the example of a couple that used to come in regularly and recently returned for one last dinner before moving to Tennessee. Though they had to leave at 4 a.m. the next day, the couple didn’t leave the restaurant until about 10 p.m. because they were having such a good time.
“To me, that’s a high compliment,” Alger said.
Moving forward, O’Hagan, Neumann and Alger are excited to continue to be a part of the Long Beach food scene and for Taste to continue to evolve.
Taste Wine-Beer-Kitchen, 3506 E Broadway, is open Thursday through Saturday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.