Orange County’s Michelin-Endorsed Ramen Shop Comes to Bustling Echo Park

One of just two LA-area ramen shops that received the Michelin guide’s coveted Bib Gourmand rating this year (the other being Okiboru in Chinatown), Hironori Craft Ramen is opening its seventh location in Echo Park’s new Brick Works development next to Supertoro. The popular Orange County ramen chain, which also has outlets in Pasadena, San Diego, and Long Beach, first opened in 2017 from Hiro Igarashi and Nori Akasaka sporting a rich tonkotsu broth and a choice of thick or thin noodles.

The shop also offers everything from a sesame miso vegan ramen to a spicy cold dipping noodle ramen with bowls like pork chashu, salmon poke, and spicy tuna. Tonkotsu broth is boiled for 24 hours while noodles are cut fresh every morning, according the menu explanation. Like some other popular restaurant chains in LA (i.e. Sugarfish, Uovo), Hironori charges a 15% service fee on bills but does not allow tipping otherwise. Hironori fills the gap between the ramen shops in Little Tokyo like Men Oh Tokushima and Shin Sen Gumi to the east, and Silver Lake like Silverlake Ramen and Ramen Bangaichi to the west.

Brick Works will have 15,000 square feet of key retail space on Sunset Boulevard, adding to the restaurant frenzy happening in the neighborhood right now. In the past few years, Monty’s Good Burger, Konbi, Bar Calo, Triple Beam, Laveta, Adamae, Lowboy, Bar Flores, Bar Avalon, Ototo, and even a Teddy’s Red Taco truck have joined the fray. Meanwhile, longtime French restaurant Taix will likely temporarily close to make way for a large mixed-use development going onto the property while Winsome quietly shut down after three years in the neighborhood.

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