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Arts District’s Creative Neighborhood Bao Shop Opens Next Week

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Here’s what to expect from Bao Hiroo

Four steamed buns filled with meat and vegetables.
Bao from Bao Hiroo
Bao Hiroo
Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

Great news for Arts District diners looking to keep things casual: Bao Hiroo arrives next week.

Whereas much of the white-hot Arts District’s dining scene has focused around big, flashy, celebrity-fueled openings and anticipations, Bao Hiroo aims in a different direction. The 1,600 square foot Barling Construction-built space sits on 2nd Street, a block north of one of the busiest drags in the neighborhood, right at the base of the Garey apartment building where Father’s Office will also open. It’s a few-frills kind of counter service restaurant with mismatched chairs and a funky industrial appeal from Mass Architecture and Design, and will serve lunch through dinner to late night.

The food at Bao Hiroo comes by way of namesake chef Hiroo Nagahara, a Tokyo native known for his food truck and restaurant the Chairman. Nagahara offers non-traditional bao buns starting at $4 apiece, in addition to options like $5 fries, and a $12 salad. A beer and wine license means the restaurant can serve sake cocktails or $8 wines by the glass. The opening menus are below.

Bao Hiroo opens next week in the Arts District from 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m., Monday through Saturday.

Bao Hiroo. 905 E. 2nd St. #109, Los Angeles, CA.

Inside Bao Hiroo
Jenni Hwang
The bar
Jenni Hwang