Hatfield’s Restaurant from “Chef”

Hatfields Restaurant Chef (8 of 9)

Today’s location is a bit of a bummer, I’m afraid.  Ever since seeing the movie Chef (one of my favorites of 2014), I was itching to stalk Hatfield’s restaurant, which appeared quite extensively throughout the flick.  So when I discovered that it had recently closed, I was devastated.  But I ventured on over to see the exterior of it in person, nonetheless, while I was in L.A. a few weeks ago.

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Hatfield’s restaurant was established by Karen and Quinn Hatfield in 2006.  The fine dining eatery was originally located in a small space on Beverly Boulevard, but moved to 6703 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood in 2010.

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The Melrose Avenue space had housed a restaurant named Citrus until 2001 and then went through a succession of different occupants, including Alex, Meson G, and Red Pearl Kitchen.  When the Hatfields leased the site, they remodeled the interior, creating an open space filled with bright white accents.  While I was hoping to get a peek of that interior via the front windows, due to the way the restaurant is set up, not much was visible, unfortunately.

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For reasons that were not specified, Hatfield’s closed its doors in December 2014 and the property that once housed it currently sits vacant.  Karen and Quinn have since opened Odys & Penelope Churrasco and Grill in the Fairfax district and they still operate The Sycamore Kitchen in that same neighborhood, as well.

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In Chef, Hatfield’s masked as the Gaellic-style Brentwood eatery named Gauloises where Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) worked.

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I fell in love with the restaurant’s open kitchen while watching Chef and was dying to stalk – and photograph – it.  A place like that is just screaming to be photographed!  I sincerely hope that whoever takes over the space leaves its design intact.

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According to a May 2014 Eater LA interview with Favreau, who wrote, produced, directed and starred in Chef, the kitchen is what made him choose the site for filming.  He says, “Cinematically it was wonderful.  When you build a restaurant on a stage for a Hollywood film it looks so perfect.  This one had a beauty to it and was very well laid out.  I loved how the front and back of the house you could see the open kitchen – you could see in – that was fun for the cameraman.  Kitchens aren’t usually aesthetically pleasing places in reality; they’re generally hot and crowded.  The visual aspect of it isn’t a priority.  This one is.”

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The culinary scenes in Chef are absolutely beautiful – and not just because of the design of Hatfield’s kitchen.  Eater LA characterizes the sequences as “food porn” and that’s a pretty accurate description.  Roy Choi, the chef behind the immensely popular Korean taco food truck fleet Kogi, consulted on the movie.  According to Jon, before coming onboard Choi said, “’I’ll do it but you have to get the kitchen right.  Movies always get it wrong.  I’ll do everything you need.  I’ll train you, do the menus, look over your scripts, help you in the editing room.  Whatever you want.  But you have to promise you’ll get the details right.’  I said that’s all I ever want to do.  That’s the way I work.  That’s exactly what I had in mind as well.”  Favreau even attended a French culinary school and worked in some of Choi’s restaurants prior to filming, which becomes obvious while watching the flick.  Favreau’s hands move like an artist when handling his dishes.  Check out this grilled cheese-making scene and you’ll see what I mean.  Just make sure you have some sliced sourdough and cheddar on hand ‘cause cravings are sure to follow!

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Hatfield’s was also where Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) sat through a terse staged lunch in the Season 3 episode of Scandal titled “Ride, Sally, Ride.”

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The space also masks as Jimmy’s, the restaurant belonging to Jimmy Martino (John Stamos), in the new Fox series Grandfathered.  The interior of the eatery . . .

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. . . and the kitchen area are featured on the show.

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Exterior filming, though, takes place at Faith & Flower, located in The Watermarke Tower at 705 West 9th Street in downtown Los Angeles.  That same building is also where Jimmy lives on the show.

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During the space’s stint as Meson G (which you can check out some photographs of here), it masked as New York restaurant Nolita for the pilot episode of the 2005 television series Kitchen Confidential.  I had never heard of the show, which was created by Darren Starr and starred cuties Bradley Cooper and Owain Yeoman, prior to doing research for this post, but it looks great!  You can check it out for free on Hulu.

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Thanks to my friend Molly, from the fabulous DIY/lifestyle website Almost Makes Perfect, I learned that David Boreanaz was punked at Meson G during Season 6 of Punk’d.

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In 2008, when the site housed Red Pearl Kitchen, it appeared in the Season 4 episode of The Hills titled “We’ll Never Be Friends” as the spot where Doug Reinhardt took Lauren Conrad on a date.

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For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Hatfield’s restaurant, from Chef, was formerly located at 6703 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.  The space is currently closed and awaiting a new tenant.

Big Red Sun from “Chef”

Big Red Sun Chef (2 of 10)

Spoiler alert!  If you have not yet seen Chef (and if not, what’s the hold up?  I told y’all on Friday that it was one of my favorite movies of 2014!), you might not want to read today’s post as I will definitely be spoiling the ending.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you!  Anyhow, at the conclusion of Chef, Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is approached by his food critic nemesis, Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt), who informs him that he would like to financially back him in the opening of a new restaurant.  Ramsey says that he has already secured a space for the venture on “Rose Avenue in Venice.”  The movie then flashes six months into the future to a scene in which Carl is show re-marrying his ex-wife, Inez (Sofia Vergara), inside of his new eatery named El Jefe.  Well, once I managed to track down Inez’s house from the flick, I immediately set about finding El Jefe.  Thankfully, it was not that difficult of an undertaking.

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Because Ramsey had mentioned Rose Avenue when talking to Carl about the restaurant, I decided to begin my search there and, sure enough, found the El Jefe space at 560 Rose, just a few blocks west of Lincoln Boulevard.  In real life, the space does not house an eatery, but a gift shop named Big Red Sun.

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Actually to call the place a gift shop would be oversimplifying.  In reality, Big Red Sun is a boutique, a nursery and a special events venue all rolled into one.  The store was originally founded by landscape artist Selena Souders in 2008.  Selena had first opened a Big Red Sun in Austin, Texas in 1994.  She would often travel to Los Angeles to purchase succulent plants and other goods to sell there and soon was dreaming of opening a West Coast outpost.  She acquired an adorable little cottage in 2007, painted it royal blue and repurposed it into a retail space.  Big Red Sun: Venice was opened the following year.  (The Texas outpost is still in operation, as well.)  Because the site is so unique, Selena also decided to offer it up to host special events.  You can check out some photographs of a wedding held on the premises here.  (Notice the pics of David Foster at the top of the page!  Loves it!)

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I fell in love with Big Red Sun upon first glance.  The shop sells some of the most unique items for the home that I have ever seen.  I ended up purchasing the really cool coconut shell-looking planter pictured below to put in the Grim Cheaper’s advent calendar.  (He is a major green thumb.)  The site sells many nursery-type materials, but also stocks specialty gifts and home décor items.  Had I had more time to spend there, I am sure I would have purchased countless other goodies.

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I so wanted to come home with the amazing succulent garden pictured below, but I am pretty sure the GC would have killed me.

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Chef made extensive use of the Big Red Sun property . . .

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. . . and featured several areas of the store, including the front exterior.

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In the movie, the El Jefe sign was placed where the Big Red Sun signage is in real life.

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The interior was also used in Chef.  For the shoot, all of the shop’s shelving and display pieces were removed to make the space look more like a restaurant.  Despite that fact, though, it is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance.  I did not take any photos of the inside of the store as a large shipment of products had just been delivered and there were countless boxes scattered about the center of the room.  Wish I could have stuck around to peruse what was in those boxes, because, as I said, the merchandise I did see was amazing.  You can check out some photographs of the inside of Big Red Sun on Apartment Therapy here.

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The store’s gorgeous backyard was also featured in the movie.

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For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Big Red Sun, aka El Jefe restaurant from Chef, is located at 560 Rose Avenue in Venice.  You can visit the shop’s official website here.

Inez’s House from “Chef”

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My favorite movie of 2014 was, hands down, The Other Woman.  Running a close second was Chef, which I am guessing many of you have not heard of.  Sadly, it was a bit of a sleeper.  Take my word for it, though, the flick is fabulous.  As are its locations!  But more on that in a minute.  The Grim Cheaper and I first heard about Chef thanks to Carson Daly who talked about it on his morning radio show on 97.1 FM a couple of months back.  Carson had just watched the movie the night prior and was mesmerized by it.  He even mentioned that it made him cry.  So when the GC and I came across the title when perusing the Instant Video selections on Amazon a couple of weeks back while spending the night at my parents’ house, we decided to watch it.  And we all had much the same reaction as Carson. Chef is heartwarming, funny and feel-good.  We absolutely loved it!  One thing that had us debating during our viewing and repeatedly pausing the movie (much to the GC’s chagrin), though, was the real life location of Inez’s (Sofia Vergara) onscreen house.

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Because of its Spanish-style architecture, my mom and the GC were convinced that the residence was located in Pasadena.  I had my doubts, though.  If a place of that massive size and spectacular beauty was actually located in the Crown City, I figured I most likely would have come across it during my ten-plus years of living there.  As it turns out, my instincts were right.  After some digging, I ended up finding the pad in Brentwood.

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Chef centers around Carl Casper (Jon Favreau, who produced, wrote, directed and starred in the movie), a high-end chef who loses his job after getting into a Twitter war with a food critic.  Following the advice of his ex-wife, Inez, Carl winds up purchasing an old food truck in Miami and refurbishing it, before driving it back to Los Angeles, selling his fare along the way.  His son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), accompanies him on the journey and their adventure is nothing short of magical.  Inez’s house in the flick is quite magical, as well.

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In real life, the residence, which was built in 1926, features five bedrooms, three baths and 6,430 square feet of living space.

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The dwelling looks just as spectacular in person as it did onscreen.

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The real life interior of the house, which you can see photographs of here, was also used in the flick.

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For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Inez’s house from Chef is located at 250 South Bristol Avenue in Brentwood.