The dining room glows with a light purple hue. The playlist is a Gen X dream of Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins and Bjork. The chatter subsides to a pleasant hum over the delicate ribbons of sweet potato and slices of radish placed with tongs.
Jacaranda is Daniel Patterson's first return to cooking in a fancy kitchen in 10 years. It is also, he says, a little more like a dinner party. It's certainly less formal than San Francisco's Coi, where it made its name and served one of the most acclaimed tasting menus in the country.
His wife, former music journalist and producer Sarah Lewitinn, welcomes guests to the new Hollywood restaurant. She is often dressed in a formal dress and just as often she is frank, cracking jokes or revealing cooking secrets as she chats with each table. With just one seating each day, guests are encouraged to linger beyond their $295, 10-course tasting menus.
The pricing is formal, but the more casual service reflects the evolution of Patterson's cuisine, as well as where he thinks fine dining is headed. With more socialization and a less stuffy atmosphere, Jacaranda, he says, fits the way he thinks Los Angeles wants to enjoy high-end dining: That combination of highs and lows, he says, has proven to be “a revelation.”
“I was very lucky to be part of a generation that did a lot to change the way people cook, and Coi did a lot of that,” Patterson says. “My question was: What will fine dining look like in 2026?”
Guests in the lavender-tinged dining room of the Jacaranda restaurant.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Patterson stepped away from his chef duties at Coi in 2016 (though he maintained ownership until its closing in 2022) to launch Locol in Watts with Roy Choi and then Alta in West Adams with Keith Corbin.
In his years away from the world of high-end tasting menus, he dedicated time to “inner healing” after years of channeling his energy and angst into the kitchen, chasing what he called “lightning moments.” Older and calmer, he worried that his creativity would suffer if he didn't chase those highs, but he found the opposite to be true. The creative flow, he says, is stronger now because of this.
Of course, it's re-entering the fine dining genre in a new era, replete with social media influencers, a “camera eats first” mentality, and an ongoing debate about fine dining's relevance, expense, and labor practices.
In a city that balances world-class street vendors with world-class tasting menus, hope there's always room for both in Los Angeles.
“I don't like censorship, and saying that some types of expression are okay and others aren't feels a lot like censorship to me,” Patterson says. “It would be ridiculous if I told you there should only be taco shops and there shouldn't be taco shops. But if you say there should only be taco shops and there shouldn't be fancy restaurants, it sounds equally ridiculous.”
An artichoke “flower” at the Jacaranda restaurant, photographed on May 3, 2026.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Patterson says he can't talk to other kitchens, but at Jacaranda he's trying to lead with more “kindness, compassion [and] patience” than before. It accommodates just one seating per evening and one seating for lunch on Sundays to allow staff to work fewer hours and alleviate some of the high-stress pressures so common in fine-dining kitchens.
His own cuisine has also evolved. Patterson has used his years in Los Angeles to explore and better understand Southern California ingredients, like the yerba santa he picks two hours away in the desert. And cook with more spices than in the Bay Area.
As for the “X factor” that makes his more relaxed approach possible, Patterson says it would be Lewitinn. Also known as Ultragrrrl, she has worked as a blogger, editor of Spin magazine, founder of a record label, and DJ. Sometimes his thoughts don't filter through to guests, which gives Patterson pause. But the spontaneous nature of Jacaranda, he says, is its beauty.
Because Jacaranda is also a love story.
Husband and wife team Daniel Patterson and Sarah Lewitinn meet in the lobby of their elegant restaurant, Jacaranda.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
After two and a half years of dating, Lewitinn finally got a taste of Patterson's real cooking. Previously, he had been solicitous of his desire to eat the kind of vegetarian food he already knew. But one night when a friend from the wine industry came to his house for dinner, Patterson cooked in his own style. When Lewitinn took the first bite, he cried.
“It was like realizing that a painter has been painting works for other people and not for himself,” he says. “At that moment I thought, 'I understand why you need to be a fine dining chef. This is your calling.' It became ride or die at that moment.”
I had wanted to return to fine dining for years, with several starts and stops. Then last summer, several friends suggested Patterson start simpler by hosting pop-ups. Lewitinn suggested using his own home.
They launched a series of ticketed dinners for 12 people called Jaca Social Club, where Patterson said he felt like a 25-year-old cook again, trying hard to make it. Despite Michelin stars and decades of experience in fine kitchens, it felt like it was being completely rebuilt.
“I think cooking is fundamentally different [from other arts] In that, no matter what happens, it's gone,” he says. “You have to do it again and redo it completely.”
The pop-up can be loud and, above all, fun.
“I would tell people, 'If I can't hear you from the kitchen,'” Lewitinn says, “then I'm doing something wrong, so please make noise and talk.”
Patterson also enlisted the help of former Coi chef de cuisine Andrew Miller for the pop-up. He's now behind the stove with Patterson at Jacaranda, and some of his pop-up dishes made it onto Jacaranda's opening menu. A plate of soft tofu covered in a layer of fish gelatin is encrusted with fresh seaweed from Monterey Bay and topped with a mound of caviar. The duck is crusted with multiple varieties of pepper.
In 2024, Patterson and Alta's Corbin were going to be in Jacaranda's kitchen. They have since divided their “spheres of influence,” Patterson says. Corbin is now solely in charge of Alta, which closed temporarily for a restart and will reopen, its chef says, with a new menu in June. Corbin and Patterson continue to run Locol and its nonprofit, Alta Community.
That spirit of the Alta Community, or what Patterson calls “the Alta foundation” (mentor staff), is also manifesting at Jacaranda. Three positions have been filled so far with people served by the nonprofit.
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A version of Jacaranda soft tofu with fresh seaweed and caviar, pictured, first appeared during the Jaca Social Club pop-up series.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
In some ways, Patterson considers the difficulties of opening (including the loss of the former Son of a Gun space on Third Street) a blessing: “The path to Jacaranda, the restaurant we have now, really came from failure and things not working out.”
Jaca Social Club operated for four and a half months before finding the former Koast space, which sits along Melrose Avenue next to another fine dining destination, Jordan Kahn's Meteora, with Nancy Silverton's Mozzaplex and Ludo Lefebvre's Petit Trois nearby.
But Patterson and Lewitinn didn't receive the keys until early March. The restaurant was born in just a month and a half. They replaced the carpet, the furniture, the ceiling, the curtains. They painted the room themselves. They changed the kitchen equipment. They hung works by Lewitinn's great-uncle, Landes Lewitinn.
Then, earlier this month, they played the sounds of Neutral Milk Hotel, Oasis and Mazzy Star, and grilled vermilion fish served with steamed Kauai prawns, nasturtium folded into delicate sandwiches, and vegetables floating in yerba santa and cactus juice. Patterson's dishes are still considered, but with an element of improvisation in all the others.
“The way we've done things forever might not apply to this,” Patterson says. “So we're going to create this as we go.”
jacaranda is located at 6623 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, and is open Monday through Saturday with seating starting at 5:30 p.m. and Sundays with seating starting at noon.
