At a typical start to the week in Los Angeles these days, you can count the number of good restaurants that have bothered to open for dinner on one or two hands.
And yet, at 9 p.m. on a Monday not long ago, the Silver Lake hotspot Pijja Palace was absolutely raging.
The parking lot of the popular Indian sports bar, shared with an unremarkable budget motel, was packed with more than 200 people attending an Industry Only LA party — top LA chefs, wheeling and dealing restaurateurs, food writers and other industry insiders, all happily eating, drinking and swapping war stories about city life and the weighty cost of doing business in LA right now.
There were flavorful sliders, compliments of the house; dim sum brought in from so-hot-right-now dumpling spot Paradise Dynasty; hot tenders finished with salmon roe. Physician and chef Yoon Sung fired Wagyu-topped Korean pizzas from a portable oven, while Disney animator-turned-chef Sarah Sanders set out her carrot cake.
There was no order to the delicious madness — just chefs showing up and feeding whoever was closest, whoever’s hand wasn’t already filled with a pint of beer, or a mezcal lychee fizz cocktail, the latter compliments of trendy dining investment and rewards app inKind.
Car and foot traffic swirled by on Sunset Boulevard, but the scene, tempting to all, was off limits to most — as evidenced by a small sign taped up near the entrance to the lot, letting everyone know this was a private affair.
Industry Only began as a loose network of chef friends coming together — but has grown into one of the West Coast restaurant world’s most sought-after gatherings and, increasingly, a place where real opportunities are born.
For a few hours on weeks when it happens, this is one of the most important spots in the LA restaurant world — hidden in plain sight, fueled by the people who cook, serve, write about, and shape the city’s food culture.
From Michelin-starred chefs to line cooks just entering the industry, all are welcome — and many show up for an evening of cooking for each other. The guest list can also veer into the unexpected. At one gathering, club DJ Spider ended up spinning for the crowd — which included OnlyFans star Kazumi, who’d been invited by a chef pal.
The party is mobile, moving through the LA sprawl, based on whoever wants to host — from a popular pizzeria in a San Fernando Valley strip mall to the offices of restaurant-tech company ChowNow. At the latter event, nearly 400 chefs and hospitality workers packed the building and sidewalk — eventually drawing complaints from neighbors and threats of police involvement.
Wherever, whenever, LA restaurant insiders continue to follow, said early organizer and avid attendee Crystal Coser — a former food writer who now runs celebrity catering company Bites & Bashes, known for putting together luxurious events for everyone from Vanity Fair to Jennifer Lopez.
“These gatherings give chefs and operators the ability to connect and collaborate in a way that doesn’t otherwise exist,” Coser told The Post. “Having a place to celebrate the joys of cooking for peers is something so precious.”
Chef Avish Naran of Pijja Palace said the event filled an unexpected gap in the industry.
“This industry can be pretty isolating,” he told The Post. “Everyone works nights, weekends and holidays.”
Industry Only, he said, “kind of compresses the whole community into one night. It’s chaotic — but it’s the good kind of chaos.”
And for Naran personally, the event has been transformative.
“I had just opened and honestly didn’t know too many people in the restaurant industry yet,” he said. “That first Industry Only was where I made my first restaurant friends in L.A.”
The organization’s ringleader is Andy Wang, a longtime food, travel and real estate writer and editor who has spent decades embedded in the restaurant world.
Known to chefs across the country not just for his encyclopedic dining knowledge but also for his poker playing abilities, Wang has built friendships in the industry over years of restaurant reporting — and the occasional late-night card game.
For many of the chefs who have joined up, the gatherings revive a spirit the industry once had more of.
“When I was coming up in L.A. almost 20 years ago, there was a lot of camaraderie,” said chef Phillip Frankland Lee, the restaurateur behind Sushi by Scratch Restaurants and NADC Burger. “Industry Only is important because it brings us all back together again.”
The networking event traces its roots to the early pandemic, when Wang, Coser, and celebrity photographer and America’s Next Top Model judge Yu Tsai began hosting a casual discussion on the social audio platform Clubhouse.
They called the weekly conversation Food Gang, a name Coser had long used for a group of close friends working across the food world.
“During COVID, I missed the discourse I shared with my hospitality industry friends during shared meals and in-person gatherings,” Coser said.
When anti-Asian violence surged in Los Angeles and across the country began to surge in 2021, the group decided to use the platform to raise awareness and funds.
Their Clubhouse fundraiser featured guests including Wolfgang Puck, Ruth Reichl, Lisa Ling and Margaret Cho, raising roughly $50,000 for the nonprofit Off Their Plate.
The success of that event led to real-world collaborations. Soon, chefs were pairing up to cook for pop-up fundraisers across Los Angeles. One of the earliest was Pop Off LA, where restaurants like top-rated Anajak Thai teamed up to create mash-up dishes sold for pickup.
The event was a hit. It also revealed something about the restaurant world: chefs rarely get to gather socially outside their own kitchens.
Chef Liwei Liao, owner of Sherman Oaks seafood shop The Joint, remembers that the first Industry Only gathering came together almost by accident. The group had just wrapped an Asian-American fundraiser at Smorgasburg LA when he suggested continuing the night elsewhere.
“Post-COVID, I was looking for any excuse to gather and socialize within the industry,” Liao said.
A week later, chefs showed up at The Joint carrying wine, trays of food and whatever ingredients they felt like cooking.
“It’s like hosting dinner for your work friends,” Liao told The Post. “While all your work friends are also cooks.”
If the concept of Industry Only is simple, the food itself can be wildly extravagant. At one gathering, chef Victor Muñoz served uni tostadas topped with caviar. At others, chefs have carved whole jamón legs, roasted whole fish, or rolled sushi for hours.
“The potlucks have become a little competitive but in the best way,” said Lauren Swaminathan, who helps coordinate vendors, sponsors like San Pellegrino, and logistics for the events.
Swaminathan first met Wang through the hospitality industry and gradually began helping organize the gatherings. Over time, the events have grown large enough to spill outdoors and take on a life of their own.
“Chefs and hospitality professionals really appreciate the opportunity to eat well and socialize without any pretense,” Swaminathan explained.
For Wang, that sense of camaraderie is still the point.
“These nights remind people why they started cooking in the first place,” he told The Post.
And while the gatherings started as a social outlet, they have increasingly become a place where business connections happen organically.
One of the most important partnerships has been with the trendy restaurant financing platform inKind — which provides restaurants with capital in exchange for dining credits rather than traditional loans.
Their reach is nationwide, but in Los Angeles, avid eaters — even those with money to burn — are known for their loyalty to the app, thanks to its generous reward system that gives you significant money back on every meal you purchase.
Restaurants love it, too — since launching, the company has deployed more than $600 million to over 6,000 restaurants across the country, according to co-founder Johann Moonesinghe.
“We provide restaurants with debt-free capital in exchange for dining credits,” Moonesinghe explained to The Post. “Operators get growth capital and new guests. Diners discover great restaurants. And inKind grows alongside our partners.”
Moonesinghe first encountered Industry Only during a dim sum lunch Wang hosted for dozens of chefs and restaurateurs.
Today he estimates that more than 100 restaurants connected through Industry Only have received funding through inKind — big, popular LA names like Tacos 1986, Bridgetown Roti, and, yes, Pijja Palace.
But while Industry Only is great for doing business, or blowing off steam with colleagues and friends, chef Shirley Chung, known from Top Chef, credits the organization with a whole lot more than that.
After Chung was diagnosed with stage-four tongue cancer, she closed her Los Angeles restaurant Ms. Chi Cafe and moved to Chicago for treatment. The Los Angeles chef community quickly rallied around her — holding a fundraiser through Industry Only.
“It really showed how much love there is to support the chef community,” she told The Post.
Through the broader chef network, Chung also connected with acclaimed Alinea helmer Grant Achatz’s physician — who helped guide her toward specialized treatment.
Months later, Chung was back on the West Coast, in remission — and cooking at an Industry Only event.
