Leon and Liu families have launched a new San Gabriel Valley restaurant as well as a new range of apparel.
Humberto Leon, the fashion designer/entrepreneur who co-founded Opening Ceremony and was co-creative director of Kenzo, is opening his second Los Angeles restaurant on Saturday.
And like his first restaurant, Chifa in Highland Park, the new Monarch in Arcadia is a family-run establishment that’s about getting back to your roots while updating old recipes and redefining Chinese food in America. Leon will also be launching new apparel, chef bags, lunchboxes and pens at Monarch. Shop the Monarch x VistaPrint collection online. Or, you can buy them at the restaurant.
Leon spent most of his teens in San Gabriel Valley, specifically Arcadia and Rosemead. Monarch is like a return to home for Leon.
Monarch’s menu is spearheaded by John Liu and includes trinity rice.
“There’s so much amazing Asian food here,” he says. “It’s super exciting for us to open a restaurant in a community that I love and grew up in and continue to support. We’re just adding to the landscape and trying to bring something that I feel is complementary and a little bit different. We’re excited to see how we can offer something that is both traditional but also modernized in a way. At the end of the day, we’ve always said we cook for us. And the way we cook at home is the way we cook for our guests.”
Leon co-directs Monarch, along with his sister Ricardina Leon and Chef John Liu, his brother-in law (also known as Popo), and mom Wendy Leon. The Cantonese/Taiwanese restaurant’s opening menu includes crab and sweet corn soup, silken steamed egg (which can be topped with uni), sweet-and-sour pork, black pepper lobster tails, trinity fried rice (garlic, ginger, scallion with egg, shrimp and fish roe) and baked pork chop rice topped with Gruyère. There’s also, through a partnership with Australia’s Westholme, an array of premium wagyu. Liu has created his family’s favorite recipe for beef noodle with Westholme bacon. He also offers filet mignon tartare, braised short-rib with tendon, and large steaks including a 32-ounce Tomahawk from Westholme.
And it’s all happening in a transportive space Leon designed with architect Michael Loverich.
“I’ve always been about making an experiential dining experience,” Leon says. “My inspiration for the space was for people to feel like deities walking into the clouds.”
Monarch’s dining room is elegant and conveys a sense of place.
Leon, whose extended family owns the Ho Kee noodle/Cantonese barbecue restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, worked in his uncle’s dim sum parlor as a teenager. He’s long adored and taken pride in the “duality” of this part of Los Angeles County. It’s a sprawling, diverse, celebratory place where you can eat some of the best inexpensive meals in the world but also ball out with an extra-large crustacean.
“As Chinese people going to eat Chinese food in the SGV, you’re always going to, whether it’s on-menu or off-menu, find and pay extra for that double-boiled soup and those amazing king crabs,” he says. “I think Monarch will also represent the duality of a good meal that isn’t too crazy expensive … but if you wanted to kind of elevate it, you could. I think that’s what Chifa does. It’s possible to eat a great meal at $25. Or you could spend more. The atmosphere is also a big factor in elevating the experience. It just comes from my background and really wanting to make sure the aesthetics are equal to the food.”
Monarch serves Westholme Wagyu in many different ways, including filet mignon tartare.
Also, there aren’t many San Gabriel Valley restaurants with strong cocktail lists, so Monarch is working with Asian-owned brands like Sông Cái (gin) and Vervet (canned cocktails) to create a proper drinking situation that pairs well with the food. They are open to trying out small-batch liquors.
Leon values collaboration. Spike Jonez (from Chifa), Ali Wong (from Chifa) and Solange Kelles helped to create limited-time dishes. Monarch’s opening menu features a black sesame brownie made by Flouring LA, which Heather Wong will soon open a bakery in Chinatown. It also includes exclusive plant-based ice-cream flavors such as white pepper and azuki-red-bean paste swirls from Lavender and Truffles, founded by Alice Liu who like Leon has moved from New York Fashion to Los Angeles Food.
And the merchandise that Leon’s debuting with VistaPrint is another way to enhance the experience of visiting Monarch.
Monarch’s merch department is strong thanks to a partnership between VistaPrint and Humberto Leon.
“I’ve always been a fan of going to experience things, whether it’s theater or eating, and being able to walk away with something,” he says. “I’m a consumer at heart and I always tell people I’m the biggest shopper. I think what’s interesting at Monarch is I wanted to go beyond a T-shirt and a sweatshirt. It feels like many restaurants have their own brands. And if they offered the right things, I would want to buy it.”
So, with artwork from Naomi Otsu, Vanna Youngstein and Li Kuanzhen, he’s made a collection with everything from bottle openers and pens to clothing for both children and adults. Monarch’s logo is a butterfly designed by Otsu. Leon claims that butterflies are capable of flying between different dimensions and worlds. He’s eager to see where his new restaurant takes him, his family and his guests.