Pijja Palace’s Hotly Anticipated Follow-Up Is Right Next Door

Avish Naran, the restaurateur behind the smash-hit Indian sports bar Pijja Palace, is opening an eagerly anticipated follow-up next year. After making an indelible mark on Los Angeles’s dining scene by eschewing conventional cooking standards, Naran is drawing on a similarly refreshing approach at the forthcoming Schezwan Club. Located next door to Pijja Palace in the same Sunset Boulevard complex anchored by a Comfort Inn motel, the restaurant will spotlight Indian Chinese cooking with Southeast Asian accents — all through the lens of an Echo Park native who remains as uncompromising in his vision as ever.

Even though Naran graduated from restaurant management school at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City with a dozen fully baked restaurant ideas in 2018, the timing to open Schezwan Club wasn’t always certain. But with the nearly two-year-old Pijja Palace “running by itself at this point,” says Naran — reservations snatched up upon release, regular queues on game nights, and markedly low turnover among staffers — the timing is finally right to bring Schezwan Club to life.

“In Silver Lake and Echo Park there isn’t a lot of Indian or Chinese food,” says Naran. “Selfishly, I really love that cuisine and I wanted to bring it to a place where I could go.” Naran’s adoration for the cooking style was sparked decades ago while dining at Indian Chinese restaurants in the Cerritos area with his family — places like the now-closed Jay Jay’s, Tangra Bistro, and Tangy Tomato. “I loved going to those Indo-Chinese restaurants, but none of them really exist anymore,” he says. “They don’t do well in Los Angeles and California generally, it seems, that doesn’t deter me from wanting to do it though because I know I can make it work.”

Though Naran is excited to introduce his long-gestating concept to Angelenos, he’s balancing it with the current economic realities of the restaurant industry. “It’s just such a volatile space, you never know what’s gonna happen, I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe,” he says. “All of my favorite restauranteurs that I looked up to getting into the industry have mostly closed the restaurants that they had open, like Roy [Choi], Eddie [Huang], Jon & Vinny’s. Data shows that this is a tough-ass industry.” Naran doesn’t foresee running restaurants “forever,” but recognizes the opportunities he has, financially and in terms of cultural collateral, at this moment.

With contractor negotiations wrapped in March and construction starting this summer, Schezwan Club should be serving its first plates of Manchurian chicken in the first half of 2025. Casandra Smith, who designed Pijja Palace’s modern sports bar interior, is charged with capturing Schezwan Club’s moodier vibe. “We’re having a lot of darker cherry woods, we might throw a neon sign in there. It’s gonna feel cool,” says Naran. The 2,500-square-foot space, which is currently occupied by the Thai restaurant April 90’s Something, will seat 80 diners.

Since Naran conceived Schezwan Club almost a decade ago, he’s broadened its culinary scope to include traditions from Southeast Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. As part of menu development for Schezwan Club, Naran spent months traveling to Indonesia, Singapore, and India to research their individual and shared foodways, paying particular mind to ingredients like tamarind that have found a place in pantries across multiple borders. “It started off very Indo-Chinese but then there’s just so many other things that I think would go together well, and just selfishly stuff that I want to eat together,” Naran says. “It’s like Pijja Palace, I don’t like being bound by any rules. Fuck that.”

Brunette Works

He envisions a menu where Singapore noodles are served alongside Manchurian chicken with a dozen or more sambals on hand to slather on everything. “I like Singapore-style chile crab — I think that’s gonna go well here. You might see some roti canai action,” Naran says.

Naran will spearhead Schezwan Club’s slate of cocktails, drawing some inspiration from Ye’s Apothecary in New York. The restaurant will also serve regionally influenced classic cocktails like the Singapore Sling and the Pegu Club from Myanmar. Naran knows that it won’t be easy to procure the specialty liquors required to produce these rarer drinks, but the trouble will be worth it to honor Schezwan Club’s vision. “That’s the vibe I’m trying to go for, a little bit more medicinal, really following things that both China and India are rich in — spices, herbs, teas. Tea culture is very important for both of us,” he says.

Beyond what will be served on the plate or in the glass, Naran wants to make sure that Schezwan Club remains unassuming and has a sense of soul. “I remember growing up, all the people that I look up to, whether it was like Eddie or Roy, there were reasons for doing things beyond flavor profile and I just want that for my restaurants,” Naran says. “I like looking beyond the plate, like what kind of cultural significance do some of these dishes have?”

While Schezwan Club’s menus and design details are still months away from being finalized, what’s certain to carry over to the new restaurant is the distinct culture that Naran and his team have cultivated at Pijja Palace. “I think our inexperience has its pros and its cons in terms of how our employees view me and Miles [Shorey],” says Naran. “I’ve worked in a lot of restaurants where I’ve had a boss — this doesn’t feel like that.” In addition to fostering an egalitarian environment void of traditional hierarchies, Naran wants staffers to just be themselves. “I don’t want anybody on my staff to feel like they’re not being [genuine]. Their personality needs to shine,” he says. It’s this palpable team spirit that has retained many of Pijja Palace’s original staffers, kept the restaurant thriving, and made the next chapter a reality.