Sleek Sunset Strip Bistro Tesse Is Closing This Month After Six Years in West Hollywood (2024)

West Hollywood restaurant Tesse is closing after just over six years of business, partners Jordan Ogron and Bill Chait tell Eater, with its last day of service on October 26. When it debuted in June 2018, Tesse was arguably the most significant opening to take place on Sunset Strip in years, an area riddled with flashy clubstaurants and spendy expense account spots.

Restaurateur Chait (Bestia, Tartine) partnered with wine pro Ogron, chef Raphael Francois (who had helmed multiple Michelin-starred restaurants in France), and dessert wizard Sally Camacho. Together, they opened a sleek modern French bistro with a midcentury modern dining room that offered high ceilings and the energy of a Bavel or Republique but in the heart of West Hollywood.

Early in its tenure, the wide menu of cheese, charcuterie, pasta, and roast chicken drew in ample crowds, but later on, Tesse settled into being a more mellow dinnertime restaurant. Nine months after it opened, Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Bill Addison gave it a sparkling review, and questioned why Tesse had not, to that point, earned more attention: “Did the location, along a stretch known more for boozing than serious dining, squelch word of mouth?” Addison lauded the dishes that leaned most on Francois’s French background:

Among its pastas and crudo and beer-battered onion rings, the dishes that most clearly call forth Francois’ Gallic soul give the restaurant its defining character. Take simplissime, a white bowl filled with puréed potatoes that channels nouvelle cuisine in its starkness. Dig deep with a spoon and it all comes together: The spuds conceal blue crab nipped with tarragon; a Cognac sauce drizzled over the top brings all the rich, swanky flavors into close harmony.

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A year later, in early 2020, the restaurant grappled with the indoor dining shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing it pivot to an al fresco dining area just outside the building and along the sidewalk. The ample outdoor space and the restaurant’s well-curated vintage wine bottles — which customers could take home — helped it survive during a challenging period. However, like many full-service restaurants, especially in West Hollywood, which has one of the highest minimum wages in the state, the post-pandemic period has been especially difficult.

Ogron says that the current business environment and local policies are responsible, in part, for Tesse’s closure. “When most restaurants close down, they’re blaming the pandemic or lack of economic recovery, but the real issue is that Los Angeles and California keep going in a direction that’s not friendly to business,” said Ogron. “For example, we’re paying four times what we were paying pre-pandemic for insurance, things like liability and worker’s comp. It’s almost impossible to run a business in this state.”

Chait also acknowledged the difficult circumstances for mid-range restaurants that have large a la carte menus. “We’re creating what amounts to very high inflationary food prices in restaurants. It’s difficult to operate a restaurant like Tesse unless the average check is well over $100. With high-end restaurants, you have the luxurious improvements to justify the prices. And quick service breakfast and lunch places like Tartine are doing fantastically,” Chait says. He pointed to the recent closure of Son of a Gun as an example of a restaurant that lives in the middle between casual daytime concepts and white tablecloth tasting menu restaurants. (Last month, chefs Daniel Patterson and Keith Corbin announced they would open a prix-fixe tasting menu restaurant at the former Son of a Gun space.)

Ogron says that the only respite will come from policymakers who can ease the financial burden on restaurant operators. “They need to start treating the restaurant industry different. I understand the reasoning [of mandating non-tipped minimum wages], but it’s so dumb to put everyone in the same boat,” he says.

Tesse hasn’t announced its closure on social media due to the hacking and subsequent deletion of its Instagram account. It will send a newsletter to its nearly 11,000 email subscribers, but folks can get further updates on the restaurant’s adjacent wine shop account, Boutellier, until its closure on October 26. Ogron and Chait hope to retain the lease and work on a new concept for the space, though those plans haven’t been settled. One thing is certain — it won’t be stuck in the middle between the casual and the upscale, like Tesse.

“At some point, the customer is just crying uncle, and you can’t expect them to carry the food and other costs that result in very expensive check averages,” says Chait.

Wonho Frank Lee