The Review: Latest Bastide is simply a joy

I've never met the man. But by all accounts, commercial director Joe Pytka is talented, difficult, sophisticated, a wine connoisseur, a design savant, and an exacting taskmaster. He's also wealthy -- wealthy enough in the days before he opened his own restaurant to routinely drop thousands of dollars at a time on food and wine at L.A.'s best restaurants. Wealthy enough to keep Bastide closed for months after he tired of its last iteration (its fourth) and thought about what he wanted to do with the space next.

By S. Irene Virbila, L.A. Times Restaurant Critic

March 31, 2010