Weeks after the abrupt closure of Horses, some of its staff are finding a new, temporary outlet in Chinatown.
The Hollywood restaurant shrouded in both acclaim and scandal closed in late December, announcing to guests with scheduled reservations that their visits would be canceled due to building repairs. Multiple tax liens, according to state documents, had been recently filed against the restaurant’s parent company.
In 2023 the divorce of Horses’ founding chefs revealed court documents alleging abuse and animal cruelty; eventually Liz Johnson and Will Aghajanian left the restaurant, and its remaining staff carried on. Brittany Ha — an early “co-chef” of the restaurant — led the kitchen through the turmoil, up until the December closure. This week she’s back in a new location with a few of her colleagues, popping-up at Chinatown wine bar Café Triste via a new residency named for her infant son, Bruce.
Ha could not provide an update on the future of Horses, but said that she and chefs Hannah Grubba and Alex Riley, also of the restaurant, have cooked alongside each other for so long that their new pop-up occurred naturally. They’ll be serving a weekly-rotating food menu every Wednesday to Friday through February, with Café Triste pairing wines.
“Working with them has been great,” Ha said of the wine bar’s team. “Their kitchen setup is very minimal so it really forces creativity. I think it’ll be a nice change of pace from the volume of Horses. It’s literally just the three of us cooking for everyone, so every dish is personal.”
Opening dishes will include options such as radicchio agro dolce with goat cheese; sausages and oysters; half of a hen with pan con tomate; and Carnaroli rice pudding with kumquat marmalade. Bruce can be found at Café Triste in February on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 11 p.m., and Fridays from 5 p.m. to midnight.
980-A N. Broadway, Los Angeles, 213-278-0820, instagram.com/bruce__la and cafetristela.com
Electric Bleu
Craig Hopson began Electric Bleu years ago as a bistro pop-up, appearing at wine bars and other businesses whenever possible. After a break and a full relaunch, it’s now one of the Westside’s buzziest new restaurants.
The alum of Le Cirque in New York always wanted his own restaurant, but put the dreams of Electric Bleu — and its pop-up appearances — aside when he took on the role of executive chef at Shirley Brasserie in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel in 2023. While there he served uni-topped bone marrow for a modern-bistro menu alongside hotel-dependable staples, and caught the eye of local publications such as the L.A. Times, which named Hopson’s oxtail Bourguignon one of the best dishes of the year.
But still, he dreamed of Electric Bleu. In the latter half of 2025, he left Shirley Brasserie and took a gamble on a corner space in Mar Vista surrounded by a residential area. Along with his wife, Mai Sakai, he launched Electric Bleu as a full restaurant: a California-French bistro where his own Australian roots still peak through.
The menu changes as often as daily, and could include crispy-edged skate wing with calamansi and Meunière; Hokkaido scallops with Meyer lemon and Tokyo turnips; rabbit-and-bacon sausage with rabbit ragout; or local roasted cone cabbage under guanciale and Béarnaise. What’s always on the menu? Hopson’s ode to chicken salt fries, an Australian dish that tosses freshly fried potatoes in chicken powder and other spices. If you can’t decide what to order, let Hopson cook for you with a nightly four-course chef’s tasting menu, and supplement with wine and sake. Electric Bleu is open Wednesday to Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 4 to 9 p.m.
3523 S. Centinela Ave., (424) 316-9416, electricbleu.com
Arroz & Fun x Chifa
The tight-knit family behind globetrotting cafe Arroz & Fun closed their Lincoln Heights restaurant in late 2025 — but this month it returned in a new format, rolled into the family’s Eagle Rock restaurant, Chifa.
Arroz & Fun, which translates to “rice and noodles,” debuted in 2023 as a daytime-only cafe that blended its owners’ Chinese, Peruvian, Taiwanese and Salvadoran heritages for items such as chorizo breakfast sandwiches on pineapple buns, soboro don, pollo a la brasa salad, and congee. It was operated by Humberto and Rica Leon, the former of which co-founded design house Opening Ceremony; Rica Leon’s husband, chef John Liu; their son, Jarod Wang; and his partner, Gardenia Rosales.
To drink, Rosales helmed a beverage menu of equally internationally-inspired caffeine drinks made with her own Cipota Coffee beans sourced from El Salvador.
The team relinquished the Lincoln Heights lease at the end of the year, then folded Arroz & Fun into Chifa: Eagle Rock’s aqua-hued, heart-accented, exceedingly stylish Peruvian-Chinese-Taiwanese restaurant. It now operates as the new daytime service at Chifa, and a blend of the two concepts.
The menu features the return of Arroz & Fun’s signature dishes such as the pineapple-bun breakfast sandwich, along with new items like black-pepper shrimp bowls, curried noodles and chicha morada lattes, which utilizes a house-made syrup of the Peruvian purple corn drink. Chifa’s collaborative daytime service now also offers wifi at Chifa, for those looking to work remotely. An opening party is slated for Feb. 7. Chifa is open Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., then from 5:30 to 9 p.m., and Thursday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., then 5:30 p.m. to midnight.
4374 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 561-3084, chifa-la.com
Taquería Frontera Silver Lake
One of the city’s top taquerias recently expanded to Silver Lake with a larger location and planned beer and wine service.
Taquería Frontera brought its Tijuana-style tacos to Cypress Park in the summer of 2024, and quickly earned local and national acclaim for its handmade tortillas, ties to Tijuana-based chain Tijuanazo Taquerías, and its ever-twirling trompo for herb-crema al pastor tacos. Owner Juan Carlos “J.C.” Guerra, whose father owns the Tijuanazo chain, began his own venture as a street pop-up, then established the storefront for burritos, quesadillas tacos, sandwiches and loaded beans.
Now he’s brought his same Cypress Park menu of birria, carne asada, lengua, al pastor and more to a small strip mall in Silver Lake, where the second location boasts multiple tables for indoor dining, counter-seat stools that peer into the kitchen, a side patio and a parking lot. Along the side of its new building reads the restaurant’s motto, “MORE TACOS LESS BORDERS.” Taquería Frontera is open in Silver Lake Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 10 p.m.
2590 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, instagram.com/taqueriafrontera
DineL.A.
DineL.A., the county-wide celebration of local restaurants, is well underway. Twice each year, the sprawling event can offer limited-time-only menus, specials and lowered prices at participating businesses. The winter 2026 iteration runs through Friday and involves nearly 400 restaurants spread across 70 neighborhoods. Prix-fixe lunch menus start at $15, while dinner can reach more than $200 for a tasting menu at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Newcomers include the Arts District’s Bianca Sicilian Trattoria, Temple City’s Bistro Na’s, Inglewood’s Somerville, Koreatown’s Gebang Sikdang and more. Find the full list of participants online.
Various locations, discoverlosangeles.com/dinela
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