The Trail of Crumbs • A Gastro Travelogue: Hero

A big perk of being creatively involved with new restaurants is being able to go to fun things like test dinners. Last night we tasted much of the new menu at Hero, the new cocktail restaurant from Josh, Adam, and Carina of Quixotic Projects (Candelaria, Glass, Le Mary Celeste). Haan Palcu-Chang's food program is centered around Korean fried chicken. Available by the whole or half bird, the chickens are quartered, fried to a thoroughly-crispy, dark brown and dressed in one of three sauces: regular, sweet garlic, or spicy. Luckily ours was a table of four which warranted getting a whole chicken moitié/moitié, half in spicy sauce, half sweet. Thankfully, Haan is a stickler for certain cutural necessities of cooking, and does not hold back on the chiles in the spicy sauce. There will be french people who cannot handle this, and that is fine. The menu is full of great antidotes to a mouth on fire: two delicious tapioca pearl drinks, the zenned-out seawead rice, the fresh and bright noodle salad, tangy rich kimchi mac 'n' cheese, and of course the light Hite Korean beer. Haan's cooking never disappointed at Le Mary Celeste, and Hero is no different. The dynamic range from acids, saltiness, spice and sweet is perfect alongside cocktails that managed to further surprise us in how crazy, new, and fun a beverage can be. The interior design by Jeanette Dalrot and Safari Sundays takes you from chic Bladerunner to 80's Santa Monica beach house and downstairs to a woody kitchen dining bar. Downstairs, dubbed Superhero, will soon be home to a nightly six-person tasting menu service, for which our own Adrian Rubi-Dentzel designed and made the bar top.

The sweet half of a "moitié-moitié " pile of fried chicken. This stack is a whole chicken half in sweet sauce, half in spicy. "Bubble Trubble" cocktail made with tapioca pearls, absinthe, bekseju, young almond syrup, and almond milk. One of our favorites and a perfect antidote to the truly spicy chicken.

Two of Hero's cocktails: "Nice Legs", Litchi, pink pepper, soju, Aperol, prosecco, and "I Woke Up Like This", Tapioca pearls, young almond syrup, almond milk and blue.


"My personal favourite for the Hero menu: seared rice cakes, ragout of mushrooms, Chinese salted radish, and gochujang on purée of soft tofu." - Quote from Haan's instagram @haanpc

Kimchi mac-n-cheese, tastes like the old school mac-n-cheese you want but bright, tangy and a little spicy

Two Hero cocktails, "Nice Legs" (left) and the pretty "Thug Life", soju, mescal, cognac blanc, gin, yuzu, lemon, ginger beer, cranberry, bitters, antesite