The Hart and the Hunter is coming back to West Hollywood next Wednesday, September 30, reopening at 7950 Melrose Avenue with daily hours from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The rustic Southern-influenced restaurant first opened at the Palihotel Melrose in 2012 and ran there until 2021, when it left Los Angeles.
According to Eater Los Angeles, the original restaurant opened the same year as a wave of now-notable spots including Bestia, Laurel Hardware, Alma, Sycamore Kitchen, Gusto, Plan Check, Post and Beam, and the Pikey, cementing its place as a launchpad for L.A. dining talent. Kris Tominaga and Brian Dunsmoor opened the Hart and the Hunter with Paligroup that year, and the two chefs would go on to shape much of the city's culinary scene in the years that followed.
James Siao said the Hart and the Hunter left Los Angeles during the pandemic to focus on operations in Seattle, where the restaurant has continued running out of Pike Place Market. Siao described the return to Los Angeles as a homecoming, per the same Eater account.
A Familiar Chef Comes Back to the Kitchen
In 2016, Kris Tominaga returned to the Hart and the Hunter as group executive chef for Paligroup, according to laweekly.com. In that role, he was handling all development and execution for the culinary concepts across the Paligroup platform, the outlet reported.
Tominaga planned a lighter, more modern take on the original Southern-inspired fare in 2016, the L.A. Weekly report notes. Some of the menu favorites, such as the fantastic biscuits, were expected to remain in that menu update even as other dishes were replaced.
The chefs' paths before the original restaurant closed are described differently across accounts. L.A. Weekly reported that Tominaga and Dunsmoor left the Hart and the Hunter in the Palihotel in 2014, while Eater's reporting states that Dunsmoor left to debut Hatchet Hall in 2015 and that Tominaga departed to helm Manuela in the Arts District in 2018. Dunsmoor later opened his own eponymous restaurant in Glassell Park in 2022.
What's on the Reopening Menu
The relaunch leans into a daytime menu built around daily brunch. Diners can expect salmon toast, a traditional combination breakfast platter, smoked corned beef hash, and cinnamon French toast topped with berries, whipped cream, and candied walnuts, per Eater's report.
The menu also brings back biscuits with chile butter, along with a braised beef melt, an open-face turkey melt, and a Reuben. Chicken pot pie in puff pastry and a trio of salads — Caesar, Waldorf, and Cobb — round out the savory options, the outlet notes.
For value-minded diners, there's a $30 weekday menu running from noon to 3 p.m. that includes a biscuit, a choice of entree, a salad, and a non-alcoholic beverage. A $20 Girl Brunch option pairs a Caesar salad, fries, and a house spritz, according to the same report.
Drinks, Happy Hour, and a Restyled Space
Cocktails top out at $15, with options including a Bloody Mary, cold brew negroni, limoncello spritz, and an oat milk espresso martini. The bar also pours Skyduster beer alongside Spanish, Californian, and French wines.
A happy hour menu runs from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., pricing beer at $4, wine at $7, and cocktails at $12. James Siao said he wanted the food and cocktails to be reasonable and approachable, the report states. The restaurant plans to bring back monthly shrimp boils on the patio as well.
The space itself has been restyled with touch-ups, new art, and new fixtures rather than an overhaul. Blue Daisy Melrose, the restaurant that occupied the space in the interim, had used much of the original Hart and the Hunter design.
Part of a Broader Wave of Returns
The Hart and the Hunter's comeback fits into what Eater describes as part of Los Angeles's resurrected restaurant trend, joining a string of reopenings across the city. Elsewhere along the Sunset Strip, a September commentary from timothydiprizito.com pointed to a broader wave of reopening efforts in the area, though the piece did not detail the full scope or pace of that trend.
Other high-profile Los Angeles-area reopenings this year have followed different paths. Duke's Malibu aimed to fully reopen by the end of February 2026 after a nearly yearlong closure caused by a mudslide, according to Palisades News, while the Pantry was expected to reopen by New Year's Eve following an agreement between new owner Leo Pustilnikov and UNITE HERE Local 11, per that union's own account.
