Recently-opened Long Beach eatery fOGG certainly has an ambitious agenda—nothing less than changing the entire premise of meals and the way we consume food.
“Humans have been eating in the same way for untold millenia,” claims fOGG chef/owner Junius, who uses only his first name professionally. “Put your food in your mouth, chomp, chomp, chomp, swallow. And that was that. What I’m challenging hungry people to do is do imagine something different, something bolder—a way to breathe in your food and savor its sustenance in a bold new milieu.”
When Junius says “breathe in,” he means it. Instead of reading off of menus or enjoying plates of traditional food, patrons at fOGG walk through a series of small rooms enveloped in misted cuisine. As you stand in one foggy space, you might smell, taste, and literally inhale a turducken; through another door, a clingy green wasabi pea fog envelops you.
“Everything we serve is in mist form,” explains Junius. “We want people to soak in our flavors through every orifice, not just their mouths. Why settle for hot fudge on your tongue when you can feel it in your lungs?”
Those lungfuls of chocolate almost proved the concept’s undoing during the restaurant’s soft open last fall, says Junius. “Lots of people were having bad reactions to relatively chunky food particles being absorbed into their lung tissue instead of oxygen. Nothing is worse for word of mouth than people being wheeled out on stretchers and ambulance sirens wailing all night!”
fOGG has put those problems in the past, says Junius. Industrial sprayers in the foyer now douse incoming patrons with a lung-numbing agent that allows them to better enjoy the experience. Junius says the change has reduced on-site collapses by over 46 percent.
Rather than allow patrons to choose items from a menu, each evening’s building layout is set in advance. “It takes a lot of effort to make a paella, turn that paella into mist, transfer it into our pressured ceiling tanks, then spray the room to the proper mist density. There’s just no goddamn way I’m doing that for every asshole who walks through the door with a special order,” Junius warns.
The pre-set room-by-room food mist layout allows those walking through to experience the flavors and smells precisely as the chef wants them to be experienced. For instance, as you walk into one room, you might feel as if you’re breathing in carrots. As you continue to pace and breathe, you’ll find pockets of other ingredients. “By the time you leave that room, you feel like you’ve eaten a garden salad,” claims Junius. “Better yet, you feel like you’ve experienced a garden salad.”
When asked to name a few signature dishes, Junius flatly refused. “Such favoritism breeds animosity and competition among dishes. I may try harder on the neglected ones, or vice-versa, might force standards of perfection on myself while preparing these signature dishes that would interfere with the pure essence and playful jois de vivre that has made them my signature in the first place. This way lies madness!”
Junius cut his teeth in the Long Beach restaurant scene as the sous chef at trendy butterfly-meat bistro Papillon. When Papillon closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, he realized that he was ready to make his own mark in avant-garde cuisine.
“I spent a long time trying to find the right space for my concept,” says Junius. “It had to be both invitingly casual and completely airtight, otherwise the food mist would seep out into the community, literally diluting the experience for our diners.”
Once the chef secured the right building, Junius experimented with cuisine mists and fogs for over 10 months. The results could often be surprising—pork turns slightly sweeter when converted into inhalable gas, for instance, which caused several recipes to be reconfigured for maximum impact.
With the restaurant now open for business, Junius is certain that his offbeat approach to food will resonate with Long Beach foodies. As he puts it, “Given a choice between taking bites of a delicious foie gras or inhaling the same meal as a room-temperature fog, who wouldn’t opt for the excitement of inhaling duck liver?”
fOGG is located at 2212 E. 4th Street in Long Beach. It is open 7 days a week, from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. For reservations, call (562) 424-1246.
Chasing its own tail all this century, the experience economy at last hits on a way to bite its own butt.
I heard this place is mid, like that band that’s been around for thirty-some years that y’all wrote about.
Can’t wait to try the pork!
You’re such a crackup, man. What a kick. 👍🏻