Butterfly – Culver City

Washington DC’s award-winning Oyamel Cocina Mexicana is unquestionably one of the country’s best Mexican restaurants, offering a robust combination of authentic small plates, tacos, soups, and beverages that would certainly pass muster in Mexico. Seizing the opportunity to reimagine the restaurants at Culver City’s boutique hotel The Shay, chef José Andrés is beginning with two concepts: a distillation of Oyamel called Butterfly on the sixth-floor rooftop, and Turkish/Mediterranean restaurant Zaytinya on the first floor.

The Culver City version of Butterfly is inspired by previous DC-area experiments with the same name and concept, effectively bringing a quarter of Oyamel’s recipes into a smaller space – this time, next to The Shay’s rooftop pool, similar to Airlight at the Conrad Hotel. That means you can choose from four types of tacos, four ceviches, two salads, five small plates, and several chip-and-salsa plates, plus one dessert. We ordered all of the tacos and ceviches, plus two of the small plates and drinks.

At this point, Butterfly’s culinary execution is roughly 90% of Oyamel at its best: classic items such as the Atun Pacifico ceviche, made with tuna, pecans, and amaranth, leaned a little salty and low on that uniquely crispy grain, but otherwise good, while bass, shrimp, and coconut ceviches were all delicious – the latter borrowed from Andrés’ DC restaurant China Chilcano. Tacos arrived fresh, hot, and plump enough with their signature ingredients (adobo chicken, crispy rockfish, confit pork, or wild mushrooms) to be worthy of their individual $7 to $9 asking prices.