The nature of nightlife in Los Angeles has changed dramatically over the past decade. Where loud, splashy clubs with bottle service and packed dance floors used to dominate, today the scene is more about “club-staurants” (a term which is universally hated, but which describes that vibey middle zone between restaurants and nightclubs). John Terzian and Brian Toll, co-founders of the h.wood Group, know this changing scene better than nearly anyone. So when it came time to update their Bootsy Bellows space on the Sunset Strip — a glitzy club that opened in 2012 and rocketed h.wood to the top of L.A.’s party scene — Terzian and Toll knew they wanted to shift towards “social dining” (their own term for the club-staurant). “It’s a restaurant with a vibe,” explained Toll. “Where the music is not too loud, it doesn’t feel like a club, but it’s a little bit of a step up from a normal restaurant.” H.wood has been perfecting the model in recent years with a spate of similar lounge-y restaurants including The Nice Guy in Los Angeles, Hipp in Cleveland, Lady Delilah in Manhattan, and Harriet’s in Nashville.
At the former Bootsy Bellows space, the h.wood team homed in on a specific kind of restaurant they felt had disappeared from the scene. “When we were promoters twenty years ago, all the best restaurants were Japanese cuisine — Koi, and things like that,” said Terzian. Which isn’t to say there aren’t great sushi restaurants in Los Angeles, he clarified. “There are, but there haven’t been any that have a little bit of a vibe and decor and all of the above.”
To begin with, Terzian and Toll hired Erik Idos as their executive chef. Idos is a Los Angeles native who spent the better part of the last two decades working in Michelin-starred kitchens like New York’s Per Se and Jean-Georges, before joining the Nobu team. Idos then helped open Nobu in San Diego, and ran Nobu Hong Kong. It was there that Idos decided to branch out and, in 2014, he opened his own restaurant — Chino — with the first location in Hong Kong, and a second in Manila. When Idos decided to return to the States recently, a friend connected him with h.wood. “They were looking for an executive chef,” Idos recalled. “So I did a tasting earlier this year, and then they’re like, ‘Okay, when can you move back? The sooner the better’.”
“He blew us away,” Toll said of Idos. “His food is really phenomenal and different, and I don’t think anyone in L.A. has seen anything like this.”
The restaurant concept that emerged with Idos was a modern izakaya called Little Luck. “I’m doing some fun things like, instead of chicken karaage, I’m doing quail karaage,” said Idos. All fish will be sourced from Japan, flown in daily, and dry-aged in-house. There will also be a Stone Axe wagyu dry-aged steak, which Toll praised for its nine-plus marble score. “We have pulled out all the stops on the food,” continued Toll. Being right on the edge of Beverly Hills, “that older crowd that spends money and appreciates great sake and great food is the hardest audience to get. And that’s really the one that we’re targeting.”
Beyond chef Idos’ kitchen, Little Luck’s beverage program will be headed by Kevin Lee, who also runs Bar Shishi in Miami. “All the drinks he’s doing just fit the food that I do so well,” said Idos. Expect a cocktail menu with drinks like a lychee martini and an old fashioned with Yamazaki whiskey and nori bitters. The beverage program will also feature boozy kakigori (Japanese shaved ice), like a negroni kakigori and a passionfruit flavor with silver rum and shochu.
The bar itself will feature some 4,000 vinyl records played on rotation. “There will be a DJ on Friday and Saturday nights,” said Terzian. “And two great private dining rooms where you can do karaoke if you want.” The rest of the space is an intimate mix of dark wood elements, hanging lanterns, and nods to both celestial elements and Little Luck’s namesake zodiac sign: Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.
The Sunset Strip may have changed since Brian Toll and John Terzian first started opening venues. It has matured along with them, but Little Luck is evidence that h.wood still knows how to give you a memorable night.
