At Jacaranda, a Meals-and-Music Energy Couple Reignites L.A. Wonderful Eating

The Los Angeles restaurant scene has been in acute crisis because of all the things from the Trump administration’s tariffs and Hollywood’s enterprise woes to rising labor prices and the normalization of GLP-1s. But the Okay-shaped economic system has concurrently nurtured a notable new technology of fine-dining rooms, with town witnessing a renaissance of tasting-menu-oriented areas, from Kato, Hayato and Baroo to Somni, Seline, Ki and Lielle.

The newest entrant is Jacaranda on Melrose Ave. in Hancock Park, catty-corner to Nancy Silverton’s Osteria Mozza and Jordan Kahn’s Meteora. The 30-seat restaurant presents a single 10-course seating every night. ($295 per particular person, not together with beverage pairings.) It marks the return after a protracted absence of the chef Daniel Patterson to the New American modernist delicacies that sealed his repute — James Beard award, a number of Michelin stars — at San Francisco’s since-shuttered Coi.

Most Angelenos accustomed to Patterson’s work in L.A. know him for Locol, his socially acutely aware fast-food idea with chef Roy Choi, and extra not too long ago the California-style soul meals spot Alta Adams. Now, with Jacaranda, he’s locked again into conceptual experimentalism with all the things from stuffed morels to roasted kelp. The objective is “making things taste very intensely like themselves,” Patterson says. “There’s a lot of work in that. Complex to do, simple to appreciate.”

His associate within the enterprise is spouse, Sarah Lewitinn, a former DJ and music business impresario who helped break acts like My Chemical Romance and The Killers. Jacaranda started as a pop-up feast of their dwelling, and Lewitinn — who’s additionally lengthy labored in advertising and occasions — now presides because the eating room’s offbeat grand dame, particularly in sparking unfiltered conversations on the communal desk. “Oddly enough, I’ve found that if you slip and say ‘fuck,’ it gets people to chill the fuck out,” she laughs.

“There’s an element of chaos with Sarah that I love,” Patterson explains. “Fine dining is so much about control, and we’re super-serious about the cooking. But what we’re trying to accomplish here — create this mom-and-pop restaurant that happens to be serving high-level food — benefits from her instinct to strip away inherited expectations.”

One space of inventive pressure for the couple: The soundtrack, a largely nostalgic combine that runs from Björk to Elliott Smith. “Daniel and I have clashed,” Lewitinn says. “I want to have a lot of Hole’s ‘Live Through This.’ He finds that to be a bit aggressive. So, I’ve been playing ‘Celebrity Skin’ instead. It’s a vibe.”