Pastry Hero Nicole Rucker Promises Award-Winning Pies on La Brea Avenue

Nicole Rucker, award-winning pasty chef, pie mastermind, and doughnut wizard, is branching out. After jumpstarting the popular offerings as co-owner of Cofax on Fairfax, she’s now set to take over the shuttered Tinga on La Brea — and already has big plans for the place.

Unlike her work at Cofax and with the entire J. Howard Group slate of restaurants — including Bludso’s Bar & Cue and their coffee shop wholesale operation — Rucker will be working both the sweet and savory side of things. The Tinga space is a large sit-down restaurant, as opposed to the Fairfax shop she’s usually at, where Rucker will get to ply her usual pastry trade while also extending into soups, main dishes, pop-ups with friends (she’s been working with Kuniko Yagi on some bento nights most recently), you name it.

Things are still shaping up with the menu and overall concept, but Rucker says pastries will obviously be a primary component. As for coffee, the idea is to not bring in an espresso machine, and instead focus on a lineup of teas. As for a timeline and details on the build-out, it’s still to early to tell. No matter: Rucker is sure to be a prime player along La Brea soon, further cementing the strip as Los Angeles’s new restaurant row.

Unnamed Nicole Rucker Project
142 S. La Brea
Los Angeles, CA