A renowned Michelin-star chef has finally stepped back into the kitchen.

Daniel Patterson, alongside his wife, Sarah Lewitinn, just opened a new restaurant, Jacaranda, in Los Angeles this week. The spot marks Patterson’s return to the world of fine dining after his Michelin two-star Coi, in San Francisco, shuttered in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic back in 2022.

At Jacaranda, Patterson and Lewitinn (who is a 25-year vet of the music industry) are aiming to blend the sophistication of fine dining with all the fun of an intimate dinner party with friends; diners got a taste of that with the couple’s Jaca Social Club, a pop-up run right out of their Hancock Park home with vibrant communal dining and tasting menus to boot. That vibe lives on at Jacaranda, with just 30 seats up for grabs, including a six-seat communal table.

“What is a fine-dining restaurant with dinner party vibes? It means Daniel’s going to cook you a fancy meal while Sarah’s making sure the music’s on point,” Patterson and Lewitinn said in a statement. “It’s going to be elegant and beautiful and do all the things a fine dining restaurant should do, but it’s also the kind of place where you might find yourself talking to the table next to you and making new friends. You’re coming over to our place, and we want to take care of you.”

The experience begins, of course, with Patterson’s 10-course tasting menu, which puts his modern California cuisine in the limelight once more. Expect dishes such as stuffed morels with new potatoes and spruce tips, soft tofu with fresh seaweeds and caviar, and grilled and raw vegetables with a green juice of yerba santa, nopales, and lime. Desserts, meanwhile, will be dreamed up by Matt Tinder, the former pastry chef at Coi; dishes there include offerings like raw chocolate, roasted kelp, and date. As for drinks, you can opt for four different pairings for your dining experience: California wines, sourced from small, independent brands; Premium parings of bottles from around the world; Hybrid, where you can choose your own path of beer, wine, and sake; and Non-Alcoholic, which will include drinks like a sparkling elderflower kombucha.

To bring the design of Jacaranda to life, Patterson and Lewitinn turned to Preen Inc., a firm based in Los Angeles. The team there pulled from many sources of inspiration, such as Jaca Social Club, and, of course, the jacaranda tree itself, to create a space that is meant to evoke a sense of intimate simplicity. Alongside pieces done up in rust and umber hues, a piece by artist Adele Renault is also perched in the restaurant alongside other art from Lewitinn’s great-uncle; it depicts a jacaranda tree that sits near Alta Adams, another L.A. restaurant that Patterson was a cofounder of that, of course, inspired the name of his new endeavor.

To see Jacaranda for yourself, head to 6623 Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles; reservations are now available on the restaurant’s website.

Click here to see more of Jacaranda’s dishes in photos.