French or Japanese tonight?

It would be senseless and cruel to make you choose.

So you’ll just go to Maru, where the French is kind of Japanese and the Japanese is kind of French and the sushi is kind of everywhere. It opens tonight in West LA, and here’s the slideshow.

You’ll find this place where Sasabune used to be. But now they’ve made it their own with, among other things, a dark, juniper-rich dining room complete with dueling bars. Two bars typically being better than one.

It’s the perfect place to put a spell on a date. Walk inside, pass the bar full of attractive Westsiders experimenting with Matt Biancaniello’s ghost-pepper-cherry-tomato-and-pear cider, then slide into a booth.

Your next step may involve a kaiseki dinner of Japanese/French creations. Or maybe you’ll just order some braised pork shoulder in puff pastry and sake-soy short ribs at your own pace. Here’s the menu. Plan accordingly.

As for the sushi bar: that’s your destination for omakase and a damned impressive nigiri selection. They sort of have everything. The classics, yes. But also some rare and interesting stuff like spiny lobster, live octopus and cod sperm.

So rare. So interesting.