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A JAPANESE EATERY FINDS A HOME ON THE GROUNDS OF CHATEAU MARMONT
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As we sit down for lunch, Reika Alexander admits that she has not eaten in 24 hours—a seemingly unfathomable amount of time for one of Manhattan’s busiest restaurateurs. At En Japanese Brasserie, the bustling restaurant she opened in the West Village 14 years ago, she promptly orders a bowl of traditional Japanese rice porridge to which she adds scallions, a few nori strips and a raw egg. “It’s healing food,” she says. The reason for the unintentional fast, she explains, was due to the frenzy surrounding the pending opening of her second restaurant, Chateau Hanare, across the country in Los Angeles. Hanare translates to “little cottage set apart” in Japanese, and it’s a fitting moniker given that the cottage lies on the grounds of the storied Chateau Marmont, connected to the hotel’s courtyard through an interior pathway. The idea was set in motion nearly 10 years ago when Alexander was having a casual conversation with one of her regular customers, Chateau Marmont owner André Balazs. “I told him about a concept for a really intimate, cozy, authentic Japanese restaurant where each room would have a
different vibe. He said, ‘I love it, we should do it together,’” says Alexander. For his part, Balazs, who has a history of doing business in Japan, explains that he “has always been interested in Japanese culture. Whether you study ikebana or tea ceremonies, it’s a very beautiful and mannered society.” He initially suggested building the restaurant inside a Japanese-style hotel in New York that he was conceptualizing at the time, and later proposed a space in his London property, the Chiltern Firehouse, neither of which were quite right. Then he urged Alexander to fly to Los Angeles to check out a little Spanish bungalow at the edge of Chateau Marmont’s hillside “campus” (a word Balazs uses to explain the Continued on p.126
WRITTEN BY KELSEY M c KINNON. FOOD, ALEXANDER AND PRIVATE DINING ROOM (4): KATE BERRY. CHATEAU MARMONT EXTERIOR: NIKOLAS KOENIG.
Clockwise from left: CHATEAU HANARE’s 10-piece sashimi. The storied CHATEAU MARMONT. A private dining room features furniture by Japan-based designer GEORGE NAKASHIMA. Peeled tomato soaked in rosemary and dashi. Restaurateur REIKA ALEXANDER.
