Corridor 109, the modern seafood fine dining restaurant by chef Brian Baik, is opening in Melrose Hill in 2025. Currently, the periodic pop-up operates from a temporary space in Chinatown and serves a $275-per-person tasting menu that uses the best ingredients from Japan and Korea. After driving through Melrose Hill for years with his parents, who own Kobawoo restaurant in nearby Koreatown, Baik has secured a former furniture retail space for Corridor 109. “There’s a good parking situation, it’s not over-commercialized, and there’s a lot of exciting projects in the area — it just feels right,” said Baik in an emailed statement to Eater.

Corridor 109 began as a Mondays-only pop-up during the pandemic at Baik’s parents’ Koreatown restaurant. Baik worked for years in New York City in lauded fine dining institutions like Eleven Madison Park and Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare and apprenticed under Nozomu Abe of Sushi Noz before moving back to Los Angeles to help at Kobawoo. Baik moved the pop-up to Chinatown in January 2023, where he operated a few days a week with limited staff and budget to attract potential investors and build a following.

Brian Baik

For the permanent Melrose Hill location, Baik will serve a tasting menu at an eight- to 10-seat counter toward the rear of the space and operate a cocktail and wine bar with a limited food menu called Bar 109 toward the front. “I felt it would be important, especially where I’m opening, to have a component that serves the neighborhood and community, to be a place where people that live nearby can hang out, come in for drinks or bites to meet with friends,” he said. Bar 109 will be open from the early evening until midnight six days a week.

The tasting counter will reflect the food served at Corridor 109, but with an open kitchen and diner interaction that Baik hasn’t been able to offer so far. Angelenos will see parallels to similarly ambitious restaurants like the now-closed Dialogue in Santa Monica from chef Dave Beran, Le Comptoir in Koreatown, and the soon-to-open Somni in West Hollywood. “The cooking will be in front of guests but us cooks are meant to fade into the background,” says Baik.

Baik is hesitant to label his cooking, though in the past he’s served dishes like Hokkaido iwashi milk bread toast, seared bonito with pesto spaghetti, and Dungeness crab consomme. The chef is striving for a certain “purity of ingredient” influenced by restaurants where he has worked and his experiences growing up in Los Angeles’s Koreatown. “I have a singular goal which is to source the best products, apply the best techniques, and for the food to be on the pedestal, and to be able to provide a special experience for our guests,” he says.

Corridor 109 will open by the first quarter of 2025 at the corner of Melrose and Western Avenues near the David Zwirner and Morán Morán art galleries. Reservations at the Chinatown location will be ongoing, with tickets released on Tock.