174: Sammy Monsour, Preux & Proper (Los Angeles, CA)

Sometimes in the culinary world, we fall into the trap that being serious about craft has to mean a “serious” restaurant. You know the kind: bespoke aprons, Brandi Carlile Spotify station on the sound system, farms listed on the menu, and a quiet pat-yourself-on-the-back attitude that you are dining well. But that doesn’t have to be the case. At Preux & Proper in downtown Los Angeles, North Carolina native Chef Sammy Monsour is cooking heritage cornbread to order, focused on sourcing sustainable seafood, and has a grow case next to the bar filled with a variety of microgreens to trim fresh for every service, but the music is rollicking, the Bogey classic Key Largo is likely playing on a screen in the dining room, and it’s hard to miss the sparkle of copper swan punchbowls filled with alcoholic fun flying off the bartop. Since my visit, this Culinary Institute of America grad has had to shutter his restaurants temporarily, but he’s brought his solid knowledge of Southern ingredients dry humor to Apoco Lockdown Kitchen, my favorite pandemic cooking show on Instagram. You can access it by following him on that platform, and after