Alphabet Bar & Grill, a new restaurant from James Beard Award-winning chef Tim Hollingsworth, opens Saturday, Aug. 15, inside Caruso's Palisades Village in Pacific Palisades, the same day the shopping center completes its post-fire rebuild. The upscale spot will serve seasonal dishes, rotisserie chicken and nostalgic desserts built around California produce, and it operates under The H.wood Group, the Westside hospitality company better known for velvet-rope nightlife spots than family dinners.
Alphabet Moves Into Hank's Former Space
The restaurant will occupy a 3,500-square-foot storefront at 15225 Palisades Village Lane, the same address that for years housed Hank's, an upscale American restaurant developer Rick Caruso named in honor of his own father, according to The Registry Southern California. The new space seats roughly 70 guests indoors with an adjoining outdoor patio, and the outlet reports Alphabet has hired about 20 local employees ahead of its opening.
Interior designer Alexa Nafisi-Movaghar of Adean Studios built the dining room around green marble countertops, brass accents, ambient lighting and linen-topped tables with textured seating, the same report notes, while working in subtle nods to Hank's throughout the space. The look is meant to blend upscale Westside polish with the neighborhood warmth Palisades diners are used to.
A Menu Built Around Rotisserie Chicken and Nostalgic Desserts
According to Los Angeles Daily News, Alphabet's menu pays homage to the classic American neighborhood grill, pairing rotisserie chicken and seasonal dishes with produce pulled from the local farmers market at Palisades Village and other California growers. The restaurant will also offer a wine menu and crafted cocktails alongside its nostalgic desserts, per a release cited by the paper.
French Laundry Pedigree Meets a Few TV Credits
Hollingsworth's résumé includes 12 years at Napa Valley's three-Michelin-starred The French Laundry, where he served as chef de cuisine under Thomas Keller, according to the Institute of Culinary Education. He won the James Beard Foundation's Rising Star Chef of the Year award in 2010 and placed sixth at the global Bocuse d'Or competition the year before, the culinary school notes.
The Daily News reports Hollingsworth has appeared on Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay, Netflix's The Final Table and PBS's The Great American Recipe. He told the paper that cooking, for him, is about taking care of the people he loves, and that he hopes Alphabet becomes a place guests return to again and again.
A Downtown Flagship's Closure
Before Alphabet, Hollingsworth spent nearly nine years running his modern American flagship Otium next to The Broad museum in Downtown Los Angeles, a restaurant that closed in September 2024 amid post-pandemic shifts in Downtown foot traffic, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
H.wood Group's First Family-Friendly, All-Day Concept
That outlet reports Alphabet marks the first family-oriented concept from The H.wood Group, and the first venue in its portfolio open for both lunch and dinner. The group is far better known for nightlife venues and velvet-rope supper clubs, including Delilah in West Hollywood and The Nice Guy on La Cienega, and its co-founders, John Terzian and Brian Toll, both grew up on LA's Westside.
The same account notes that Caruso's team first partnered with Hollingsworth to develop a concept for the space, then brought in Terzian and Toll to run daily operations, drawing on a decade-long relationship between the parties.
Per that reporting, the restaurant's name nods to the surrounding residential section of Pacific Palisades known as the Alphabet Streets, a grid of lettered roads laid out during the neighborhood's early planning in the 1920s.
Opening Day Doubles as a Post-Fire Milestone for the Village
Alphabet's debut lines up with the reopening of Caruso's 125,000-square-foot Palisades Village, which first opened in September 2018 and has undergone a restoration exceeding $100 million after the January 2025 Palisades Fire, according to Secret Los Angeles. Hoodline has previously covered the village's rebuild in detail.
Alphabet joins a high-profile lineup of dining anchors at the restored center, including Michelin-starred chef Nancy Silverton's new steakhouse Spacca Tutto, which Hoodline reported is coming to the Palisades in partnership with Caruso and River Jetty Restaurant Group. More information on the restaurant is available through Palisades Village's website.
