The brick building at 9355 Culver Blvd has tabletop grills now. Until early November 2025, it held seven restaurants under one roof as Citizen Public Market. Today one Korean barbecue restaurant fills it, run by a team that has already opened two others.
Most of Culver City's new restaurant arrivals this fall are second chapters. Mamie's Culver City café is a second location. Hwa-On comes from the people behind Mikomi Sushi and Seoul Alley. Heisei is chef Chris Ono's first permanent restaurant after years of pop-up dinners in Little Tokyo. Coming next fall, Culver Commons is where one of Orange County's biggest restaurant groups is placing its first Los Angeles bet. This fall, downtown Culver City is where proven operators are going next.
The building that went from seven kitchens to one
Citizen Public Market opened in November 2020 in a historic building in the middle of Downtown Culver City. Eater LA reported that it was close to HBO, Amazon Studios and Sony. In September 2025, Eater LA reported that the food hall would close for good on November 2, 2025. At that point it housed seven restaurants, among them chef Brandon Kida's Go Go Bird, Benevento, Smokey Chance and the Jikoni pop-up. The rooftop tenant, Bar Bohemien, was staying open.
A food hall works by spreading the bet across many small counters. Hwa-On KBBQ puts the whole building behind one concept. The Infatuation describes it as an upscale Korean barbecue spot with beef-only combos built around wagyu brisket and galbi, starting at $165 for two to three people. There are also kimchi pancakes and stews. The bar list includes gochujang palomas and a doenjang caramel iced matcha.
Hwa-On's own site calls it a concept from the Mikomi Sushi and Seoul Alley team. What Now Los Angeles reported in July that the menu would include wagyu, combination platters, à la carte options, Korean side dishes, lunch specials and a full-service bar. The Infatuation put it on its November list of new Los Angeles openings, which tracks restaurants opened in the past three months. The restaurant's site has said reservations are "opening soon," so check there before you plan a group dinner around it.
The $165 starting combo is a different kind of meal from grabbing fried chicken at one counter and pizza at the next. The building has gone from casual grazing to a planned dinner, and the team running it already has a track record.
Three blocks of Culver Boulevard, two very different meals
Head west on Culver Boulevard from Hwa-On and you reach Mamie at 9512 Culver Blvd. Hwa-On is the planned dinner. Mamie is the lunch you don't need to plan. It is an Italian café, and its website says the second location is "officially open" and that the grand opening celebration has already happened.
The menu is short. There are Tuscan panini, Italian sodas and Neapolitan coffee. The panini come on schiacciata, a Tuscan flatbread Mamie ferments for 72 hours. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, so this is a lunch and afternoon stop.
Mamie fits the same pattern as Hwa-On. A business that already built a following at its first location chose downtown Culver City for its second. With two new spots a few minutes' walk apart, you can have a long lunch and a big dinner on the same stretch of Culver Boulevard, and you can walk between them.
| Restaurant | Where | What came before it | What it is now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hwa-On KBBQ | 9355 Culver Blvd | Citizen Public Market food hall, closed Nov. 2025 | Wagyu-focused Korean barbecue from the Mikomi Sushi and Seoul Alley team |
| Mamie | 9512 Culver Blvd | An Italian café's first location | Tuscan panini, Italian soda, Neapolitan coffee, daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Heisei | Washington Blvd, a few blocks from Tito's Tacos | Chef Chris Ono's Hansei pop-up in Little Tokyo | Casual Japanese-American restaurant |
| Vox Kitchen and Rol | Culver Commons, Washington Blvd and Centinela Ave | Kei Concepts' Orange County restaurants | Peruvian-Chinese dining room and handroll counter, expected next fall |
A hometown chef's first room of his own
Heisei is the most personal story here. Chef Chris Ono was born in Culver City, and Heisei is his first independent restaurant there. Eater LA's fall preview placed it a few blocks from Tito's Tacos on Washington Boulevard.
Food Journal Magazine's profile lists where he has cooked. He worked at Eleven Madison Park in New York, RyuGin in Tokyo, Mori Sushi in Los Angeles, and Providence, Michael Cimarusti's seafood restaurant on Melrose. Since 2022 he has run Hansei, a tasting-menu pop-up inside the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center at 244 S. San Pedro Street in Little Tokyo, and Food Journal reports that its reservations have sold out quickly and consistently.
The names tie the two projects together. Hansei means self-reflection. Heisei is the Japanese era that ran from 1989 to 2019, and Food Journal notes the characters translate roughly as "achieving peace." The same piece describes Ono's cooking as a modern take on LA Nikkei cuisine that follows Japanese seasons, uses California farmers market produce and draws on his perspective as a yonsei, a fourth-generation Japanese American. Food Journal also points to a 2022 Rafu Shimpo profile describing how Ono stepped in to help the Venice Hongwanji Buddhist Temple when it couldn't hold its annual Obon festival.
Heisei is built to be more casual than the tasting menu. The Infatuation's preview calls it a Japanese-American neighborhood restaurant. The previewed dishes are obon chicken over rice and cabbage, a kaisen don with crab, avocado, ikura and uni served with warm dashi, and a chicken salad with crispy yakisoba. For Culver City, a chef whose pop-up sold out reservations has chosen the city where he was born for his everyday restaurant.
The biggest bet is still a year out
The largest project on this list sits where Washington Boulevard meets Centinela Avenue. Eater LA reported on November 3 that Kei Concepts will anchor Culver Commons, a $24 million Regency Centers development, starting next fall.
According to Eater, Kei Concepts began 12 years ago as a single pho shop in Buena Park. It now runs nine brands across 14 locations with 1,200 employees, and it was co-founded by James Beard-nominated chef Viet Nguyen. The group ran Súp Noodle Bar in Cerritos from 2017 to 2020, but Culver Commons is where it is choosing to start in Los Angeles.
Two concepts are planned:
- Vox Kitchen, the group's Peruvian-Chinese restaurant, in a 200-seat, 5,000-square-foot dining room with a patio
- Rol, a 2,000-square-foot counter for Japanese handrolls and onigiri
A 200-seat room needs heavy, steady traffic. A group with 14 locations behind it picking Culver City for its first Los Angeles opening is the clearest sign yet of how operators see this town. The 12-year growth story Eater describes, from one pho shop to nine brands, gives Kei Concepts years of data on where its restaurants succeed.
Where the new places sit on a December evening
The downtown spots will be close to one of the neighborhood's big nights out soon. The Downtown Culver City Tree Lighting Sled-tacular is on December 3, 2026, from 5 to 8:30 p.m., and the tree gets lit at 6 p.m. Mamie closes at 5, so stop for a panini and an Italian soda that afternoon before the crowds arrive. After the lights come on, Hwa-On's tabletop grills are a short walk up Culver Boulevard.
I love writing about how a restaurant opening changes the feel of a block, because it's the same thing I help clients think through when they're picking a street. If you'd like to talk about which corner of Culver City fits your everyday routine, whether that's being near Washington Boulevard or close to downtown, Jaecey Parham is happy to compare notes over lunch. Let's Connect.
