Jonathan Whitener

Coming Up

Technique from the Culinary Institute of America gave Jonathan Whitener the basic discipline to build on, but the work that followed was about turning training into a sharper, more personal register. The through line was ownership: a kitchen of his own, with dishes that could carry his pace and point of view without softening them for convenience. That took shape in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where Jonathan Whitener became chef-owner at Here’s Looking at You in 2016–2024. The room matched the work: alert, layered, and built for movement rather than stasis. Scale came next in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, where Jonathan Whitener took on chef-owner duties at All Day Baby in 2019–2024. Running both kitchens meant handling two distinct operations at once, with the kind of attention that keeps a restaurant identity intact under pressure. Across those years, the pattern was momentum over repetition, with each turn aimed at a new plate, a new adjustment, a new way to keep the work live.

Signature

The dishes associated with Jonathan Whitener move between familiar formats and sharper turns: steak tartare, salsa negra frog legs, crispy sweetbreads paired with fennel three ways, almond mole mai tai, and fish sandwich. That list shows a kitchen willing to work across richness, brightness, and texture without settling into one lane. The naming itself does part of the work, signaling compositions that are built to read clearly but land with a bit of edge.

In Their Words “The end goal for me going into the industry was obviously opening my own place one day.” The claim points to a kitchen organized around novelty as a working principle. It also suggests a chef measuring success by whether a dish can feel new to the diner and still remain recognizably his own.