Celebrating the people, passion, and stories behind great hospitality with Tock 10.
ILÉ
Los Angeles, CA
The name
ILÉ, meaning “home” in the West African Yoruba language, embodies its name completely. This unique restaurant is set inside the chef’s actual home, offering guests a truly personal invitation to experience West African cuisine and hospitality.
Chef Tolu “Eros” Erogbogbo, nicknamed “the billionaire chef” after launching successful ventures starting as a teenager in Nigeria, brought West African cuisine to global audiences through pop-ups in Dubai and Europe. After settling in LA in 2021, he transformed his Hollywood home into an intimate dining space to showcase his homeland’s aromatic, spice-driven cuisine. “West African cuisine is one of the world’s most influential food cultures that dates back thousands of years,” Eros said to Travel Noire. “To eat our food is to honor our history.”
ILÉ feels like an intimate dinner party where Chef Eros personally plates and serves each dish—like Senegalese caramelized onion chicken, Ghanian-perfumed jollof rice, and spiced lamb in zoboberry demi-glace—while sharing stories about his West African fare with guests at two communal tables.
Inn of the Seventh Ray
Topanga, CA
Origin
Before they opened a restaurant, Lucile and Ralph Yaney worked as psychotherapists in Beverly Hills. On their daily commute from Topanga in the nearby Santa Monica Mountains, the couple passed an old junkyard with a dilapidated church. On a whim one day, they stopped to explore, and felt an immediate and inexplicable connection with the land, rumored to be a meeting place of the Chumash, Native American people who lived in the area thousands of years ago. Lucile and Ralph restored the property and founded the restaurant, Inn of the Seventh Ray, in 1973 with the vision to share their passion for what they called high-vibration foods.
Together, the Yaneys helped to pioneer the farm-to-table movement while continuing to work as therapists. Although sourcing whole, organic ingredients and naturally-raised meats was difficult at first, more people caught on, and over the years, the Inn became a destination for those seeking an off-the-beaten-path California dining experience. In 2010, Chef Bradley Miller took over in the kitchen, helping to reimagine a menu of local ingredients, and earning a nod from the LA Times. Today, the Inn of the Seventh Ray is considered one of the most romantic restaurants in the Los Angeles area.
For the magical setting. With its twinkling lights and old sycamore trees, the Inn of the Seventh Ray offers a serene escape from the everyday hustle and bustle.
