“What’s for dinner?” is a question that rings throughout many homes across the city. But to Fiona Zhang and Jerry Zheng, the question that launched their new dining venture is, "Who’s coming for dinner.” Meet Friend of a Friend , a new supper club serving blended Asian flavors over a dining table at a 1930s French and Spanish style house in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood.
Zhang and Zheng, both 26 years old, met through a mutual friend a few years ago — and connected over food and a shared ambition to launch something a little different in the L.A. restaurant scene.
“We realized that ‘friends of friends’ is just such a great way to connect with new people...
who might have similar interests, or are just like-minded,” Zhang said. The two friends opened the doors to Friend of a Friend this past May. And it’s been a two-person crew since — from prep, creating the menu, to actually cooking the dishes.
It’s been a fun and creative process that’s guided by that simple question: what’s for dinner? “A lot of times we're just like, well, ‘What would we want to eat? What do we think sounds good?' And incorporating seasonality whenever we can, that's something that's been fun for us too,” Zhang said. Zheng, who is Chinese American, is the venture’s head chef, who used the pandemic to further refine his self-taught cooking skills at a time when DIY supper clubs proliferated. And Korean-Chinese American Zheng works with influencers and brands by day, an.
