The American eclectic restaurant Here’s Looking At You (HLAY) opened almost a decade ago in the heart of Koreatown, quickly drawing national recognition. COVID lockdowns forced the establishment to close, but 17 months later, fans crowdfunded to save it. Then last year, head chef and co-owner Jonathan Whitener died. At 36 years old, he was already one of the most celebrated chefs in Los Angeles. Their sister restaurant, Silver Lake’s All Day Baby, shut down in December. And now, June 13 will be the last day of business for HLAY.
Owner Lien Ta tells KCRW that she met Whitener when they both worked at Animal Restaurant on Fairfax Ave, where he revitalized the iconic, modern American restaurant and added a new vision and personality. She says she realized that he was a “unique chef with a voice on a plate,” a great potential partner to bring to life her old dream of opening a restaurant.
She says the Koreatown location helped solidify their menu concept for HLAY, and when she asked Whitener what he would include in their menu, he wrote it out on a piece of paper in 10 minutes. Some items were a house-made labneh, green Chilean leeks, and crispy prawns with green Sriracha.
Ta ended up writing their business plan in two days, she recalls.
Lien Ta and Jonathan Whitener stand in their kitchen. Courtesy of Lien Ta.
“I begged our current landlord to take us seriously and hold the space for us. We found the money. We put the down payment. And we signed the lease. And now 10 years has gone by.”
Ta and Whitener struggled to find a good enough name for their new establishment, she says.
“I could just sense that this restaurant was going to be just a little bit off and quirky and different, so the name needed to match those characteristics. And one day, I was looking through my stationery collection … and I found an old card. It's a gal holding a drink, and on the bottom of it, it said, ‘here's looking at you.’ And so I remember thinking … this is weird enough, but I'm not going to text this to Jonathan. We're going to go out to lunch, and I'll just push the card across the table and show it to him. So we went to Little Tokyo, and I did just that, and he looked at me and he said, ‘I'm not gonna lie, I really like it.’”
Then with the COVID pandemic closure and being back in business thanks to the community support, Ta says it all felt like a rollercoaster.
“With the reopening, I mean, I've never experienced anything like it. … Receiving these emails: ‘I got engaged there. … Now I'm expecting my first child. And you're closing. I can't believe it.’ And then the reopening was like, ‘Oh my gosh, take $5,000. Name a cocktail after me.’ The energy was unlike anything I had experienced at that time. … It was like a sugar high that wouldn't go away, and in the best way possible. We rehired old staff. … And just to see that room … we had unpacked everything and then put everything back where it was.”
Lien Ta sits inside Here’s Looking At You. Credit: Bailey Robb.
Then when Whitener died a year ago, Ta considered both continuing and ending the business.
“I suppose restaurants can hire a different chef, and that formula makes a lot of sense for different kinds of restaurants. … Here's Looking at You, however, is a chef-driven restaurant. It's a destination restaurant. … Without its chef, I really, really couldn't see how we could continue with open doors, but I felt compelled to find a solution.”
In came Daniel Cutler, chef and co-owner of Ronan, to help. “He's just really helped us keep it together. Because there were things that I don't do. I'm not the chef. I may do all the CEO stuff, the finances, the payroll, the marketing, the Instagram, the hiring and firing, or whatever. We don't really fire. … But I really did need a leader. … We were all grieving, and I'm just so glad that our remaining team members … with Daniel's guidance and just friendship, we've been able to keep it going until now.”
So why end HLAY now? The lease is expiring, and Ta says it doesn’t make sense to sign another lease without a chef. She adds, “I'm making this decision emotionally. I created that space with Jonathan, and I would like to enjoy its last day as our restaurant.”
Restaurants aren’t just businesses, she emphasizes. Looking back on the first year, Ta says the staff had an extraordinary amount of fun, considering the amount of money they were not making. “It was almost like we were playing, and we were just seeing what we could do, and what we could get away with, and how much we could love it.”
Here’s Looking At You sits on the corner of Oxford Ave. and 6th St. in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Credit: Brooke Olsen.