Men & Beasts Showcases Plant-Based Chinese Cooking
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Men & Beasts, a refreshingly modern take on plant-based Chinese cuisine in Echo Park, is a restaurant and tea house that couldn’t exist without the symbiotic partnership between wife and husband Minty Zhu and Alex Falco.
When the two first met in New York in 2018, Zhu was studying international business and bartending on the side while Falco was a chef at hotspots like Glasserie and the now-closed BLT Steak. They were each on their own food journeys. Zhu, whose family owned a Hunan restaurant in China, was homesick and longed to taste the dishes she grew up enjoying. And Falco had pivoted to a vegetarian diet for personal health reasons.
Naturally, their interests melded together. “She would tell me about all these dishes that she had eaten throughout China and what the key ingredients and important parts were, and I would go to work and make plant-based versions of them,” says Falco. “I’d know that my work was done when Minty approved.”
Inspired by their collaboration, they launched their first brick-and-mortar, Minty Z, in Miami in 2020. While Minty Z grew into a restaurant popular for its creative plant-based takes on dim sum, they made the decision to close in 2024 to move to Los Angeles to raise their young daughter near Falco’s family.
Men & Beasts (the name is a reference to a Confucius quote) became synonymous with their new chapter. In taking over the former Cosa Buona space on the bustling intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Alvarado Street, the pair transformed it into a restaurant with distinct environments: an enclosed patio for casual dining, and an intimate indoor tea lounge with wine, beer and bites for a more bar-like atmosphere. With dinner and weekend brunch offerings that lean on seasonality and house-made proteins, Men & Beasts is pushing forward a fresh vision of vegetarian and vegan cooking.
“What we’re trying to do here is continue the Chinese tradition, but also embrace innovation,” says Zhu. Here, Zhu and Falco give us the rundown on everything you need to know before you go.
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You won’t find these dim sum dishes anywhere else.
While the Men & Beasts dinner menu is tight, with just a dozen dishes, each one packs a punch. Falco’s rendition of sweet and sour chicken involves crispy, battered oyster mushrooms slathered in a pineapple-laced sauce with slivers of red bell peppers and cashews. Kung pao chicken is reimagined as a rectangular mound of tofu blanketed in chile oil, peanuts and sliced scallions.
The unique synergy between Falco and Zhu has resulted in dim sum you won’t find even in the San Gabriel Valley. Falco, who learned about the ins and outs of bun- and dumpling-making from the dim sum chefs whom he worked alongside at Minty Z, created a seitan char siu bao that draws inspiration from sheng jian bao (juicy pan-fried pork buns) and the sweet-and-sticky American monkey bread.
Their monkey bun is a quartet of pull-apart pillowy soft bread, pan-fried and glazed with hoisin. It’s filled with house-made seitan simmered in a sweet and dark soy sauce, a preparation inspired by the braised tofu served at New York’s Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao restaurant. “I thought it was amazing, especially for a vegan,” says Falco. “It tasted so much like braised meat to me and that I started working with braised seitan to recreate meat textures in my dishes.”
The elote puff is a distant cousin of the wu gok (fried taro dumplings). Falco infuses corn into mashed taro root as a dough mixture for the football-shaped dumplings before filling it with a Mexican-style creamed corn instead of the traditional pork, shrimp and vegetables. It’s served on a bed of fried cilantro and topped with a dollop of lime mayo and chili flakes. “The elote puffs are a nod to where we’re living, to incorporate Mexican street food culture that we see all around L.A.,” says Falco.
Expect brunch to be equally exciting.
“Since dim sum is traditionally a brunch thing, we anticipated opening for brunch before we even opened this restaurant,” says Falco.
Men & Beasts recently rolled out brunch service on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with inventive Chinese and American breakfast fusions. Some of the most interesting dishes include five-spice bao beignets, fried to order and accompanied with a black sesame caramel dipping sauce. There are also fluffy, 10-inch-high stacks of blueberry soufflé pancakes capped with house-made plant-based butter and maple syrup, a dish that was popular at Minty Z.
Their binglish muffin is a play on words and cultures: a cross between a crispy Chinese da bing sesame pancake and English muffin, split and brushed with plant-based butter, and accompanied with scallions and an optional steamed egg.
Go on a journey of oolong teas.
Men & Beasts offers a handful of oolong teas by the pot — from floral jasmine to roasted Alishan — from Yoshan Tea. The fourth-generation tea producer harvests its leaves from the Dong Ding Mountain in central Taiwan, and also operates a tea house in Arcadia.
Zhu, an avid tea drinker, wanted to specifically highlight oolong, which she considers a happy medium between the freshness of green tea and the richness of black. “It also pairs well with Chinese food that’s a bit on the spicy or savory side,” says Zhu. “It lightens up your palate.” The teas can be enjoyed both in the patio and tea lounge, and ordered by the pot or for self-guided gongfu cha ceremonies (a traditional Chinese method of brewing tea that utilizes fairness pitchers and timed steeps).
The tea lounge has guided gongfu cha ceremonies in the form of reservation-only events on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons. Zhu performs the tradition in front of the guests, who each have their own tea ware sets to follow along, and then discuss the teas and offer a couple of oolong varieties with small bites.
The beer and wine come from local producers.
In addition to teas, Falco and Zhu wanted to feature small and local producers on their drinks menu, resulting in by-the-glass and bottle options from Angeleno Wine Co. and Moorpark’s Friendly Noise. (Zhu says Friendly Noise’s citrusy skin-contact Verdejo has been a hit.) Some of their most interesting brews come from Glendale’s Brewyard Beer Company with calamansi and sushi rice lagers, and Taiwan’s Ugly Half Beer, which spotlights a guava gose. You’ll also find Long Beach’s Fine Feathers Kombucha Co. in unique flavors like rooibos palo santo on the menu.
Experience both the indoor and outdoor spaces.
When Falco and Zhu took over their Echo Park restaurant, they saw potential in the previously underutilized patio space. “We decided to put a lot of investment into the patio space and give it shelter, heat and music, and turn it into a real vibe that’s totally different from the indoor space,” says Falco.
Over two months, under the guidance of Falco’s sister Molly Falco (who helped design the restaurant), they were able to transform the outdoor dining area into a charming destination. A wooden fence now frames the patio flanked by a distressed red brick wall, with black and gray accents throughout. With help from a devoted customer from their Miami restaurant, they were linked with Santa Barbara’s Pampel Design company, which built a sleek pergola with lighting. Some of the larger, black-lacquered wooden tables are topped with matching lazy Susans and encircled by gray-padded wooden chairs, with the patio area seating up to 48 diners.
While the focus of the indoor lounge is on tea, the tranquil room serves many purposes that are perfect for those who want to grab a drink before or after dinner, some small bites, or a full meal. Molly’s aesthetic was “dark bohemian minimalism,” says Alex. At night, the room, which seats 25, is dimly lit. A few leafy plants surround the low wooden coffee tables and plush seat cushions in hues of light blue, deep red and purple. A 12-foot-long beige communal table, custom-built like most of the furniture in the lounge by Ciro Aranda (a carpenter whom the couple met at the Rose Bowl Flea Market), serves as a centerpiece.
“We really wanted to make it feel like a warm, comforting place where you can sit and enjoy a cup of tea with friends and family,” says Alex.
