April Bloomfield, Marc Vetri Head To Cali

Enough with these East Coast winters; let's move out to sunny California. Well, at least a few chefs are following that mantra. This week, restaurant projects from April Bloomfield and cult ramen shop Ippudo have been confirmed for Southern California, while Marc Vetri's Philadelphia-based team has announced that he will be opening in the Bay Area.

Bloomfield's project has been rumored for a while, but Eater LA says it is now official. She and longtime business partner Ken Friedman are opening in what was once Cat & the Fiddle, a space that neighbors Curtis Stone's new meat palace, Gwen. Bloomfield's restaurant looks like it will have a Middle Eastern bent, which should fit in well with the recent surge of Middle Eastern restaurants in L.A. from chefs like Bestia's Ori Menashe and Madcapra duo Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson.

RELATED   Chefs Are Flocking to L.A. from All Over. Here's Why. "

Meanwhile, Ippudo, which is based in Japan but has long been a New York favorite, is planning to open a ramen-ya in Santa Monica next year and another in Berkeley, which will start serving piping hot bowls of soup before the year's end.

Not far away, Palo Alto's getting a café from Marc Vetri, who sold his restaurant group to Urban Outfitters, which also owns Free People and Anthropologie, a year ago. The Terrain Café will be located in Anthropologie's garden-centric sister store, Eater SF says, and will open next week—just in time for a break from holiday shopping. Since the chef inked the deal, the team has expanded Vetri's empire to Austin and D.C., so he likely won't be in the house there for too long. But perhaps when things get cold in Philly, the chef will escape to the California sun.