Chef Shuffles

First & Hope Gets a New Chef, Again

Photo: First & Hope

There seems to be a recurring cycle here with three as the magic number as another new chef with another new menu is springing up at Downtown’s First & Hope. Feast reports that Joseph Panarello, the replacement for opening chef Shelly Cooper, who fled after three months, left himself to go back to Rivera in December, also roughly three months after stepping in as a so-called “interim chef.” Yuji Isawa, formerly at Downtown Standard and a vet of Cafe Stella and Koi, has been passed the executive chef crown and plans his own menu overhaul. But in this new era of great flux in L.A., let’s hope Isawa, and the restaurant itself for that matter, make it past the next three month mark.

First & Hope Replaces Panarello with Standard Alum [Feast]

First & Hope Gets a New Chef, Again