Melrose Hill Came Alive During Frieze Week L.A. 2025

The streets of Melrose Hill were electric during Frieze week.

It’s a part of Los Angeles few have been familiar with by name, until recently. The strip — near the intersection of Western and Melrose avenues, from Santa Monica to Beverly boulevards — has emerged as a new hot Los Angeles neighborhood. A wave of art galleries, stylish cafés and buzzy restaurants has opened up, including David Zwirner, Ètra and Co, many lured by producer-turned-developer Zach Lasry.

The newest highly anticipated openings are chef Brian Baik’s Corridor 109 and adjacent Bar 109.

“My parents’ restaurant [Kobawoo House] used to be on Beverly, a mile and a half from here,” Baik said in his new space, located at 641 Western Avenue, slated to open in April.

“This is where neighborhood families bought furniture,” he said of the evolution.

Baik worked for years in New York at Eleven Madison Park and Chef’s Table, and apprenticed under Nozomu Abe of Sushi Noz. Back in L.A., Corridor 109 began as a pop-up in 2021 at Kobawoo House before he took it to Chinatown, making a name for experimenting with the highest quality seafood.

The menu will evolve seasonally, with some steady signature dishes like Katsuo Pesto (skipjack tuna, pesto spaghetti, charred shallots and ginger) and Iwashi Toast (salt-and-vinegar-cured Japanese sardine served over homemade milk bread, aioli and pickled red peppers, “inspired by Catalan pintxos and my time working at Sushi Noz”).

Serving a $295-per-person tasting menu, with the finest ingredients from Japan and Korea, Corridor 109 will seat 12 by reservation only. Meanwhile, Bar 109, located in the front with a capacity of 30, will offer craft cocktail classics, wine and sake.

Down the block, fellow L.A. natives Evan Algorri, executive chef, Andrew Lawson and Tyler Stonebreaker have been running sister establishments Ètra and Café Telegrama since 2023. And across the street, newbie Bar Etoile has been open for four months.

“This is the center of so many neighborhoods put together,” said co-owner Julian Kurland (formerly of Native, the Rose), who runs the French bistro-inspired restaurant that was formerly a furniture store with business partner Jill Bernheimer of natural wine shop Domaine LA, and chef Travis Hayden.

“It is not many nights where somebody doesn’t walk in here and doesn’t know somebody else who’s already sitting in the restaurant. It’s the coolest thing to watch,” said Kurland. “Not a clubhouse at all, but it’s been a meeting place for people.”

Behind these developments is owner Zach Lasry — who reportedly purchased 18 buildings within a three-block radius on Western Avenue with his billionaire father Marc Lasry, cofounder and chief executive officer of Avenue Capital Group. Among their tenants is gallery powerhouse David Zwirner, as well as women’s fashion brand Co, which opened in 2023 and was previously a mattress shop.

“We were approached by Zach Lasry, who’s very involved with what’s happening on the street, and I think he’s curating the street very carefully,” said Co cofounder Stephanie Danan.

The art world certainly took notice when Zwirner opened its L.A. flagship in 2023, with not one but two galleries. (Though smaller galleries like The Lodge, opened by Australian-born Alice Lodge, have been around since early 2015.) Morán Morán, showcasing both emerging and established artists, unveiled a space down the street in 2021. It’s also where New Yorker Emma Fernberger chose to open her first gallery last year, and where international names have unveiled new locations — like Rele Gallery, coming from Lagos, and Southern Guild, from Cape Town. The list goes on: Clearing, Château Shatto, Sargent’s Daughters, Shrine — all contemporary galleries — are just steps away. Opening next is Wilding Cran Gallery, at 607 North Western Avenue.

On Tuesday night at Co, Danan was getting ready to host the opening of “Huella De Tierra,” a collection of ceramic works by Spanish artist Raúl Mouro, in collaboration with Olivia Marciano (daughter of Guess’ Maurice Marciano and artistic director of the Marciano Art Foundation), who discovered the artist while in Spain.

“For me, it’s a no-brainer because I love Olivia’s taste in art, in fashion, and when she showed me the work, I loved it,” said Danan. “I love combining clothes with art.”

Within the hour, her store was packed. The entire street, in fact, was vibrant and full of energy with locals and visitors wandering into gallery openings.

Mariposa Gallery was showing the work of Peter Berlin — a queer icon whose self-portraits explore identity and sexuality — and the studded leather and denim fashion designs he made for his photographs.

“He’s someone I saw as a young man and found the content quite terrifying, because I think I saw myself — and knew that was a world I was attracted to,” said actor Russell Tovey, who curated the show. He was joined by friend and fellow actor Pedro Pascal, who stopped by the opening.

Berlin, now 82, made a name for himself in the 1970s with his imagery and gay erotic films. It was a persona, however. He was born Armin Hagen Freiherr von Hoyningen-Huene in Germany.

“I created Peter Berlin in San Francisco,” he explained, calling from his home there. He now goes by Armin, though doesn’t mind being referred to as Peter, he said. “For me, a dressed person is more interesting, erotic and sexy. A naked person, it’s how you’re born. There’s no expression of who you are.”

For Tovey, Berlin’s work is more resonant now than ever: “He was free, and he was open. And that’s such a beautiful thing, especially for queer imagery and for gay men. My hero [artist and filmmaker] Derek Jarman said in the late ’80s, ‘If you wait long enough, the world moved in circles.’ And here we are in 2025, you look at the rhetoric of government, queer rights, this work feels suddenly even more timely. It has to be visible. It has to be seen. This is an existence that can’t be denied.”