Here's Looking at You Wants to Bring a Different Kind of Dining to Koreatown This Spring

Koreatown continues to shine, with news yesterday that a new eatery called Here’s Looking at You will be landing in the already restaurant-dense restaurant neighborhood this coming spring. LA Weekly got first dibs on the details, which peg former Animal chef Jonathan Whitener as the chef/co-owner.

The restaurant lands in the former Whiz space on 6th Street, and is being done in partnership with Lien Ta, who also has long ties to the Jon & Vinny restaurant ecosystem. The plan, says Ta, is to bring Japanese-Mexican flavors to the area (Whitener is the one behind those ramen bowls Animal was doing), packaged in a slightly nicer dinner environment. There are also possible plans to expand with a more quick service daytime format for lunches at some point in the far future, which would include premade sandwiches and the like.

Despite the overt Mexican and Japanese influences Ta calls the menu, which might include fried chicken, hamachi crudo,and a bone-in ribeye, Southern California-styled American food, adding that it’s the sort of thing that she thinks Californians "want to eat right now — and tomorrow."

While it's all still coming together, diners should eventually expect six-day-a-week evening service with seatings at the bar and throughout the room, totaling about 50 guests at any given time; construction of the former cheesesteak space, and some adjoining square footage, is already well underway. Drinks-wise, Ta says a full liquor license would be ideal, but no matter what the restaurant will carry a strong focus on wine under sommelier Danielle Fournier, who spends time at Salt’s Cure currently.

"What we like about Koreatown is its location," says Ta. "We like to think of it as the physical heart of Los Angeles. You can often find Jonathan and I at a lot of its restaurants and bars, but we want to help revive the non-Korean more-than-casual dining culture of the area, like when Old Hollywood used to hang out and spend an evening in this mid-Wilshire area and revel it up." Here’s Looking at You is plotting a late spring arrival on 6th Street.

Here's Looking at You
3901 W. 6th St.
Los Angeles, CA