How Yuko Watanabe's plant-filled restaurants became L.A.'s most comforting places to eat.
With sales of houseplants soaring during the pandemic, we curated this list of our favorite places to shop for them in and around L.A.
Her parents loved to cook, and she grew up cooking and eating with them in her family’s kitchen. Her upbringing would ultimately influence the nostalgic passions that make her three restaurants so special: nature and cooking.“Anything that I felt or touched or saw when I was growing up has inspired my work,” she said. “My installations and paintings represent how I feel. I think the beauty of what I do comes from my childhood.
In 2008, she opened Yuko Kitchen in a tiny cafe located just off of Wilshire Boulevard, not far from the. “I painted the walls and decorated the restaurant with stuff that I could afford,” she said. “I didn’t have much money, so I painted it by myself and bought plants to decorate. I worked Monday to Saturday all day, every day. Instead of visiting my friends, I stayed in the restaurant with Genki and painted the walls one by one.
“When I’m painting and doing installations, it’s a big part of my therapy,” she said. “You can’t avoid people working in a restaurant, so I find my time alone to be precious. That’s when so many of my ideas take flight.”During the height of the pandemic, when it felt as if her life was a series of endless pivots, she transformed her restaurants into plant shops. Now, people come from all over L.A.
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