If you or a loved one have ever paid $27 for a lone sausage and a measly scoop of mashed potatoes at a certain buzzy wine bar and left hungry, you may be entitled to financial compensation.
At least, I wish that were the case. At a time when restaurant math isn’t working for anyone involved, the humble wine bar has ascended in cultural and algorithmic significance as a legitimate dining genre in Los Angeles. For diners, there’s still the thrill of going out to eat, plus less sticker shock, at least upon initial glance at the menu. Still, order more than a few of the carb-heavy, flavor-forward small plates offered at most trendy wine-centric spots—enough to make a full meal—and the grim, undeniable fact remains: The plates are indeed small, the prices don’t always match up and the expectations-to-reality gap, especially after factoring in TikTok or media hype, is usually larger than anticipated.
Which is why it’s been such a joy to head down the 405—yes, even during rush hour—and tuck into a meal at Vin Folk, a reasonably priced, deeply satisfying 45-seat bistro in Hermosa Beach. Run almost entirely by trained chefs, this nearly four-month-old restaurant offers a winning menu of French-leaning, globally inspired dishes imbued with the flare of modernist fine dining. Think Singaporean chili crab remixed into a creamy risotto that uses crab caught off the Southern California coast and tender beef tongue flavored with Russian-style spicy horseradish and tatsoi (a type of Asian brassica green that tastes similar to bok choy).
The Filipino-influenced desserts bear more than a passing similarity to the striking edible sculptures at two Michelin-starred Vespertine and its more casual counterpart, Destroyer; the restaurant’s pastry chef, Lei Elmann, spent time at both restaurants. There’s also an excellent beverage program that includes an eclectic mix of wines, non-alcoholic cocktails and house blended teas; and a thoughtful approach to service that nods to the world of tasting menus and white tablecloths sans all the formality.
When I say the restaurant is run almost entirely by chefs, I do mean it: Unless one of the two sommeliers is on the floor, each dish will be served to you by someone in a blue apron and chef’s whites, complete with relevant backstory and culinary influences. It’s a meaningful touch inspired by Somni, where Vin Folk’s chef-owners Kevin De Los Santos and Katya Shastova—partners in business and in life—first met back in 2019, when Somni was still located in the SLS Beverly Hills and members of the kitchen presented each course. (Note: They still do this now at Somni 2.0.)
At Vin Folk, the entire culinary staff rotates through every task, from cooking certain dishes and interacting with diners to the necessary and important act of dishwashing. The fairly democratic kitchen system, combined with the talent De Los Santos and Shastova have managed to recruit and the excellent of the cuisine itself, upends the notion that there are ever “too many cooks.” In fact, it resembles the egalitarian atmosphere of early, pre-scandal Horses in Hollywood, which the Los Angeles Times once featured for its team of four co-chefs, sous chef and pastry chef—all of whom had a hand in creating the ever-evolving menu.
Comparatively, De Los Santos and Shastova’s backgrounds and past experiences, professional and personal, are what predominantly inform the savory menu at Vin Folk, though other members of the kitchen also have contributed to the development of certain dishes. De Los Santos, who originally hails from the Philippines, drew inspiration from nearby Singapore in developing the must-order chili crab. Despite its creamy texture, the risotto-like dish is entirely dairy-free thanks to the use of crab fat, which the kitchen emulsifies into butter. With a tinge of spicy and a rich seafood flavor, it’s easily one of the menu’s standout dishes.
What truly makes the chili crab special, however, is the use of Santa Barbara rock crab, which Vin Folk sources from a local diving boat captain that Shastova worked with during lockdown. Laid off from her kitchen job at the time, she decided to try her hand at crabbing. “He’s kind of like my dad,” she explains in a follow-up interview. “We got very close, so he always takes care of us.” The restaurant also serves the captain’s homemade port.
A notable highbrow-lowbrow mix threads itself throughout the dinner menu, which is divided into snacks, “cold” and “hot.” At the lowbrow end of the spectrum, the headcheese toast uses pork headcheese and milk bread—both items made in house—but comes topped with slices of melted American, which translates into comforting bites of meat and cheese reminiscent of a grilled panini. Each $14 order comes with two hefty pieces. There’s also the impressive mussel tart, inspired by an opened tin of escabeche the couple had while traveling through Spain, flavored with fennel and whelk cream. The restaurant streamlines cooking and keeps prices down with storebought puff pastry—the dish is only $22—but still imparts visual delight while incorporating high-quality seafood and gourmet ingredients.
Another standout inexpensive example is the pritto, or fried jidori chicken. Dusted with fennel pollen and togarashi, the dish draws inspiration from Taiwanese popcorn chicken and adds cubes of zucchini for intrigue. At $20, it’s pricier than your average boba shop snack but still offers a small mountain of fried chicken pieces. A solo diner stopping in for a glass of wine and a snack could easily come away satisfied with either the pritto or the mussel tart. The same $20 will also get you the jowl and mackerel, which with the generously portioned pile of mashed potatoes and pickled vegetables is large enough to be a small meal.
For anyone looking for more of a true wine bar experience, the beverage program is equally interesting, with a range of California and Old World wines, wine-based aperitifs, beer and ciders and a small sake selection curated by Idean Hashemian, a South Bay native who also helped develop Poke Me, a build-your-own poké chain with five locations across greater L.A. and Orange County. Among them are over a dozen by-the-glass selections, with plenty in the $15 and under range. The non-alcoholic offerings include an excellent, tea-based mocktail known as the Hangry Diary and loose-leaf tea options sourced and blended by Shastova, who applies holistic principles to create blends that facilitate digestion.
Sure, it may not be oh-so-trendy natural wine—a near-meaningless phrase that refers to everything from low-intervention bottles made with biodynamic farming practices to cheap, poorly made stuff that tastes like vinegar—but what Vin Folk offers, in terms of breadth, quality and value, is even better.
The kitchen displays even more creativity at the highbrow side of the spectrum, where a pea chawanmushi incorporates Perigord black truffles, black radishes, fortified sherry and mizuna, a peppery Japanese green. The requisite yellowtail crudo runs on the spicier, zippy side, with fried shallot oil, capers and Aleppo pepper that warm the palate. The most surprising dish of all for me, in terms of relative value and overall distinction, is the half jidori chicken cassoulet. The eggplant jus hidden underneath calls to mind baba ganoush and imbues the mix of black-eyed peas, seasonal vegetables and deep-fried fava beans with an almost Middle Eastern flavor profile. At $60, it’s meant to feed two—and easily upstages the crispy-skinned dorade and dry-aged steak, the menu’s other large-format crowdpleasers.
At meal’s end, pastry chef Lei Elmann draws upon her Filipino heritage and pastry experience in fine dining for a uniquely L.A. dessert program that spans French classics and Filipino-inflected modernist sweets. I particularly enjoyed the Gascon-style flan, which eats like a firmer version of a Basque cheesecake and the Sans Royal, a playful riff on traditional Filipino sans rival. The crisp wafer-like layers of nut-based meringue and rich buttercream are balanced out by the tang of hawthorn berries and a squiggle of caramel. The most visually striking options are the Kid & Her Horn (an icy, fruity place on a cheese course, which I wasn’t able to try personally) and the Koko Crunch, which offers six kinds of chocolate in a structural array inspired by Elmann’s favorite childhood cereal. Paired with a little cup of warm milk and dusted with asín tibuok—a rare salt from Bohol, a province in the Philippines’ Central Visayas—it’s the obvious showstopping end for destination diners.
Though the regular menu and weekly specials offer much in the way of culinary delight, I can’t honestly say every single dish at Vin Folk dazzled me. On my second visit, I tried an exemplary mackerel and eggplant special flavored with calamansi grown just outside the restaurant, but I also ordered the housemade rye focaccia with chicken liver mousse, which ultimately tread in all-too-familiar territory. The beets and radish in a yogurt sauce offered a hint of textural surprise with brown butter-rich crumbles but otherwise felt quite rote. The orange creamsicle ice cream tasted more like an orange sorbet—which wouldn’t have been a problem, if not for how it was advertised.
Luckily, even less exciting dishes at Vin Folk like hamachi crudo and roasted beets stick the landing in terms of execution—and more than deliver once you factor in price. This is more than can be said for many of the newer wine bars closer to central Los Angeles, where vibes generally take precedence over food quality or value.
In addition to Somni, De Los Santos and Shastova have other Michelin-starred restaurant experiences under their belts. The couple have also worked at Curtis Stone’s now-closed Maude, as well as Vespertine. While their first priority in quietly opening last fall has been winning over the local community—including the regulars of Chef Melba’s Bistro, the space’s previous occupant—it’s clear that Vin Folk has the potential to be far more than an above-average neighborhood restaurant. With the reasonable price point and exceptional cuisine, I’d already consider this Hermosa Beach bistro a countywide dining destination.
Vin Folk earned four stars—“very good”—from us. To find out more about Time Out’s curation methods and ethics policies, head to our global “How we review” page.
Vin Folk
1501 Hermosa Ave, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.
Tue–Thu 5–10pm; Fri, Sat 5–11pm.