On August 8, chef Timothy Hollingsworth announced the closure of his nearly 10-year-old Downtown LA institution, Otium, in an Instagram post. This ends the run of one of Los Angeles’s most notable museum-adjacent restaurants, with its last night of service taking place on September 8.

Hollingsworth moved to Los Angeles after leaving his post as chef de cuisine of Yountville’s three-Michelin-starred French Laundry and representing the United States in the prestigious Bocuse d’Or competition. He then opened Barrel & Ashes in Studio City (which closed five years later), but Otium was always his most personal restaurant, its international menu influenced by the city’s Asian diasporic and Levantine communities. The striking standalone restaurant next to the Broad Museum was designed by architect Osvaldo Maoizzi, and featured an airy main dining room, ample natural light, and a thoughtful blend of metal and natural materials. Its open kitchen and stack of wood logs gave it energetic warmth.

The late critic Jonathan Gold gave Otium a mixed review in the Los Angeles Times in 2018, lauding the preparation of dishes but feeling somewhat overwhelmed by its more-is-more approach: “I’m not fond of the concept of decadence when it comes to food, but this is real end-of-empire stuff, the brunch of time’s demise,” he wrote. In 2019, Hollingsworth competed in Netflix’s The Final Table, a massive cooking competition that included some of the most accomplished chefs in the world. The chef ended up winning the competition with a black cod dish he served at Otium.

Adrian Martin

Otium’s closure announcement said the COVID-19 pandemic had created “unprecedented challenges, making it increasingly difficult to sustain our operations.” Eater spoke with Hollingsworth on the phone, who said the restaurant had done well after reopening from an 18-month hiatus — due to the pause on indoor dining during the pandemic — but that it’s been a challenge in the past year-plus to remain profitable. Hollingsworth also said the Downtown crowd had changed due to the pandemic, with fewer office workers frequenting the restaurant for lunch. Otium’s Instagram statement suggested the restaurant would be open to finding another location; Hollingsworth told Eater he would prefer to reopen in somewhere like West Hollywood instead of Downtown.

In more recent months, Hollingsworth has been busy with the hugely popular pop-up Chain he runs with actor B.J. Novak, which has since expanded to include a food festival called Chain Fest. The heavily branded pop-up plays off of Millennial nostalgia for fast-food chains like Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Panda Express, and McDonald’s. Chainfest recently announced it would hold an event in New York City on September 21 in partnership with its new investor, Chrissy Teigen.