Top Chef Winner Hung Huynh to Open Trendy New Sunset Strip Lounge

Top Chef Season 3 winner Hung Huynh comes to Los Angeles after a long cooking career in New York City, with plans to open a lounge called Warrior in the former Pearl’s Rooftop space on Sunset Strip. Huynh helped open the immensely popular Catch restaurant in NYC’s Meatpacking District for years before departing the celebrity hotspot in 2015. Huynh now arrives in West Hollywood with an Asian-influenced menu of charred edamade, wagyu potstickers, barbecue pork ribs, and drunken “warrior” noodles for the see-and-be-seen Sunset Strip crowd come November.

Typical of the nightlife-heavy neighborhood Warrior’s design draws from a mish-mash of Asian cues, from 200-year-old doors imported from China and a teal-colored vintage-looking room reminiscent of the Orient Express’s bar car. Designers Supermarket Creative knows an entrance is a way to make a solid first impression with these sceney LA spots, so the dark red hallway leading into the lounge is lined with hand-painted wallpaper. Bold colors, velvet furniture, marble bar, gold tones — it’s all part of the package.

With a person of Huynh’s immense culinary talents, a veteran of Thomas Keller’s Per Se and Guy Savoy in Vegas, it seems like Warrior will punch well above its weight in the food department. Whether or not the Instagram influencers and scene-chasers in West Hollywood will latch onto that kind of food is a different story. Drinks might as well play the primary role at lounges like this, so consultants Sweet & Chili will produce a remixed classic cocktail list for Warrior once it opens next month.

Warrior. 8909 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069.

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