88 Club Is Your New Destination Restaurant in Beverly Hills
Top Chef champion Mei Lin and restaurateur Francis Miranda have been creating magic together in Los Angeles for several years now, from opening their lauded pan-Asian hotspot Nightshade to launching the wildly popular Szechuan hot chicken joint Daybird. Their newest collaboration, 88 Club, makes a splashy entrance in Beverly Hills: an upscale Chinese restaurant that reimagines nostalgic family-style dishes with a modern touch. Kung pao scallops and caviar-topped sesame prawn toast, anyone?
It had been a longtime dream for Miranda, who also owns Trophies Burger Club, to open a Chinese restaurant — and it made sense for him to tap Lin as its chef. Lin, who was born in China, grew up in Dearborn, Michigan working at her family’s Chinese restaurant long before she cooked in the acclaimed kitchens of Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and Michael Voltaggio’s ink. “The food at 88 Club is a nod to my upbringing,” says Lin. “Creating this menu really meant bringing comfort to the plate.”
In some ways, Miranda sees 88 Club as an outgrowth of Nightshade, which closed due to the pandemic. “I think I’ll finally get to give myself and the team the best shot at creating an institution,” he says. “Nightshade had all the makings for one — all the accolades and attention — but it was so short-lived. I always think about what could have been,” he says.
Perhaps the name 88 Club, which refers to the number that symbolizes prosperity in Chinese culture, is a harbinger of good things to come for the restaurant. Here’s everything you need to know before you go.
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It’s a whimsical take on familiar Chinese food.
Lin tweaks her favorite nostalgic dishes with playfully modern touches, like a wonton soup with prawn and bamboo shoot-stuffed dumplings in a chicken master stock; and a Chinese American reinterpretation of Singaporean chow mein in the form of curried rice vermicelli stir-fried with heaps of seasonal market vegetables.
At Nightshade, one of Lin’s most popular items was her reinvention of mapo tofu in the form of lasagna, and at 88 Club, she once again flips the classic Sichuan dish on its head, this time into a vegan offering made with king oyster and shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and fava beans. “I thought it would be nice to reinforce the fava beans by utilizing doubanjiang, which is a [fermented] broad bean paste also made from favas,” says Lin.
The food at 88 Club is a nod to my upbringing … Creating this menu really meant bringing comfort to the plate.— Mei Lin, 88 Club
As a next-level tribute to her father’s specialty of nam yu chicken wings, Lin marinates a half-roasted chicken in the namesake fermented red bean curd along with ginger, garlic, scallions, soy sauce, honey, and maltose, giving the bird a gorgeous sheen. It’s served in a broth of aromatic soy with a side of ginger-scallion relish. “That, with a bowl of rice — call it a day for me,” says Lin.
The cocktails play with Asian flavors.
Kevin Nguyen (Death & Co, Camélia) consulted on the eight-cocktail menu, which incorporates Asian ingredients like pandan and bitter melon. 88 Club’s spritz, a favorite of Miranda and Lin’s, is a refreshing lychee-forward blend of shochu, pamplemousse liqueur, and sparkling French Crémant.
One of the most interesting cocktails is the LIIT, an adaptation of a Long Island Iced Tea with the addition of osmanthus, bergamot, cola, and the Chinese liquor baijiu. Lin wanted to recreate the classic cocktail after a night searching for the drink with chefs Lucas Sin (host of the Bon Appétit show Street Eats) and Eric Sze (owner of New York’s 886 and Wenwen restaurants) years ago. “Long Island Iced Teas get a really bad rap for a lot of different reasons, but I wanted to put the flavors of Hong Kong lemon iced tea in it,” says Lin.
As for wines, 88 Club’s general manager and sommelier Diana Lee (Gwen, Intercrew) curated the European-leaning program that highlights small and sustainable producers. One of the most notable wines complements to Lin’s dishes is the Stein “Weihwasser” Feinherb Riesling from Rheinhessen, Germany. “When people think about Rieslings they think, ‘Oh, it’s a sweet wine,’ but its aromatic qualities pair really well with Asian cuisine, especially Chinese and Thai food,” says Lin.
The design leans on Chinese symbols of luck.
Miranda teamed up with the Los Angeles design firm Preen Inc. to bring his vision for 88 Club — a melding of vintage Chinese and elegant contemporary vibes — to life. Upstairs in the mezzanine, there’s a 10-seat private table that overlooks a 2,200-square-foot floor that is separated into two spaces: a dining area referred to as the “Jade Room” and a five-seat bar dubbed the “Rose Room.”
The facade of the cocktail bar is lined in stunning Rosso marble in shades of burgundy and rose. Plush pink chairs are decorated with Chinese patterns like the round symbol of longevity. The wall is adorned with Chinese artist Wu Yue’s experimental artwork utilizing bleach on canvas.
In the 44-seat dining room, where the walls are lacquered in a light jade color (a nod to the stone’s symbol of auspiciousness), black oak wood tables are surrounded by black leather banquettes and dark green leather chairs. Artwork depicting three tigers (another lucky symbol) by local artist Javier Ramirez serves as the centerpiece to the room. And one of the most striking design elements is a lazy Susan made of pale green stone. Miranda first fell in love with these lazy Susans at The Merchants in Hong Kong, and had them shipped to the U.S. for 88 Club.
Pay attention to the vintage details.
While the custom bowls and plates are embossed with the 88 Club logo in gold, the share plates are antique Chinese dinnerware depicting images of dragons, florals, and geometric shapes. Miranda searched far and wide at flea markets to create this collection for the restaurant. He also rounded up vintage jade artwork and a Chinese painting of a man riding a horse, among other personal details placed throughout the space. “I love the old school vintage pieces that we have on the wall that really scream chinoiserie,” says Lin.
With the vintage items bridging the past with the present, Miranda sees 88 Club as the next chapter of Chinese food in Beverly Hills, which is already home to the renowned 51-year-old Mr. Chow, just a few blocks away. “The man is a legend,” Miranda says of the eponymous owner. “We take our hats off to him. We just want 88 Club to give people another option; to feel like a younger breath of fresh air.”
Jean Trinh’s food and culture stories have appeared in Los Angeles Times, Food & Wine, and The New York Times. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Follow Resy, too.
