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Red Medicine to close at the end of October

Chef Jordan Kahn prepares a dish inside the kitchen at Red Medicine restaurant in Beverly Hills earlier this year.
Chef Jordan Kahn prepares a dish inside the kitchen at Red Medicine restaurant in Beverly Hills earlier this year.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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Red Medicine, the neo-Vietnamese-turned-neo-Nordic restaurant known as the “bad boy” of the L.A. dining scene, has announced that it will close its doors at the end of next month. The owners are planning to sell the restaurant.

The edge-of-Beverly Hills restaurant, whose kitchen was helmed by chef Jordan Kahn, said in a statement: “Red Medicine has developed a following of passionate diners over the years and we were delighted to create a unique culinary experience for each and every one of them. With new building ownership and the accompanying overhead cost increases, we have accepted an offer and plan to sell the restaurant.”

The partners included Kahn, manager Noah Ellis and Umami Burger founder Adam Fleischman. Kahn is expected to announce his next project in the coming months, and Ellis will continue in his role as co-founder of restaurant consulting firm Vice Food & Beverage and at Top Round.

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Red Medicine opened in 2010 and almost immediately riled up L.A.’s Vietnamese community by using an image of Ho Chi Minh as its original logo (which was changed). Later controversies included shaming no-shows on Twitter and most notoriously throwing a Los Angeles Times critic out of the restaurant while she was waiting for a table and taking her photo and posting it online (she had until then been anonymous).

Though Kahn’s cuisine was praised nationally, diners might not have been able to follow the transition from modern/sort-of Vietnamese to modern/sort-of-not Vietnamese. Red Medicine’s partners didn’t immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Diners are invited to visit the restaurant before the last day of service on Oct. 31.

800 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (323) 651-5500, www.redmedicinela.com.

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