High-End Manzke Restaurants Add to String of L.A. Closures
Michelin-starred Manzke and sister bistro Bicyclette to close March 1
By Greg Cornfield February 6, 2024 2:35 pm
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Chefs Walter and Margarita Manzke are closing two of their newer restaurants in Los Angeles, extending a trend of major permanent closures due to the uncertain economy.
Manzke, one of the priciest restaurants in L.A., and its more popular sister restaurant and French bistro, Bicyclette, will close on March 1. Eater Los Angeles first reported the news after confirming a string of since-deleted Reddit posts. The owners cited “financial losses” for the closures but didn’t elaborate.
The two restaurants are in the same building along Pico Boulevard in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood on L.A.’s Westside, about one block south of Beverly Hills. Bicyclette opened in June 2021, and quickly jumped to the No. 38 spot on the L.A. Times’ list of best restaurants in the region. The smaller restaurant Manzke opened with a few dozen tables in March 2022 with a $225 tasting menu, and earned a Michelin star in December 2022.
The news comes just a few months after the Manzkes closed Petty Cash Taqueria on Beverly Boulevard in October 2023 after 10 years, and Sari Sari Store after seven years in Grand Central Market on Broadway in Downtown L.A.
The Manzkes’ flagship, République, which opened in 2013 on La Brea Avenue north of Wilshire Boulevard, is their only restaurant remaining.
The shutterings extend an era of dozens of high-profile restaurant and bakery closures in the region. Legendary bakery Sweet Lady Jane surprised many after announcing the abrupt closure of six locations in L.A. on the final day of 2023. Earlier this week, news broke that the restaurants at Hotel Figueroa in downtown will soon close.
“The cost of repairs — anything that’s connected to labor — is really severe,” Walter Manzke told the L.A. Times in December. “It’s hard to comprehend the invoices you see, and you don’t have a choice when you have to fix the stove. … I think there are a few people in the world where everything fell into place during the pandemic, and they were lucky and everything worked out and they’re in a better place, but that’s certainly not us and for the most part not anybody that I’m associated with.”
Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.
