Joe Miller, who was one of LA’s best and unmistakable culinary specialists, passed at 60 years old. Miller opened the exceptionally respected Joe’s Restaurant in Venice on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in 1991, serving American cuisine on the Westside. Miller was one of the most compelling chefs in LA, tutoring various cooks who proceeded to open venues of their own.
Miller’s family had an announcement:
It is with great sadness that we share Chef Joe Miller has passed away due to complications of a cardiac arrest in mid-September while doing what he loved, cycling. He has been an important presence in the culinary world for more than 30-years, exemplifying creativity, leadership and mentoring of hundreds of chefs and restaurant/culinary professionals. We mourn his passing and appreciate the outpouring of love and respect to him and the entire family during this very painful and challenging time.
Joe’s Restaurant got positive review from LA Times pundit S. Irene Virbila in 1998, and later earned a Michelin star in 2007. The café was known for utilizing French methods with farmer’s market produce and Asian and Californian influence. Joe’s shut in 2016 after over 24 years in Venice with Miller saying at the time:
“I have seen this community through many changes. I’ve had a wonderful experience pouring my heart and soul into my food, my service, and my standards. I’m grateful to have met so many people and have had the pleasure of employing so many fine chefs and service staff and have seen many of them off to open their own restaurants to great acclaim, but now it is time to move on.”
Miller was most as of late filling in as the occasions supervisor at New York’s popular Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Prior to that, Miller was expedited as a specialist at Pacifique in West Hollywood, a cutting edge Japanese-enlivened California eatery. He additionally counseled at Hop Saint Brewery in Torrance and The Cannery Restaurant in Monterey.
In 2017, Miller came back to the LA eatery scene opening Rudy and Hudson burger joint in Santa Monica in a previous IHOP space on the ground floor of a neighborhood motel. Miller had a revived interpretation of great coffee shop toll, and it was a takeoff from his progressively cooking at Joe’s Restaurant. Rudy and Hudson shut down in late 2017.
Miller’s other prominent LA café was Bar Pintxo, which he had worked from 2006 until 2017 in Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade region. That eatery was one of the main tapas-style cafés in the city.
Miller is surviced by his mom Molly Miller, sibling Michael Miller, sibling Patrick Miller (and sister-in-law Patricia), his youngsters Spencer and Harper Miller, ex Monica Balsz, and life partner Christine Mourad. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1958.
