Back in November, Hoodline caught the news that "hunter-gatherer chef" Erik Sun, who's both a partner and occasionally a chef at popular downtown Los Angeles restaurant Bestia was heading to San Francisco to open not one but two interconnected restaurants at 715 Brannan Street and 445 Harriet Street. This week Tablehopper has an update about both, the former being The Arsenal, the somewhat more high-end spot with a focus on Asian flavors and whole-animal cooking, both a la carte and omakase menu options, super-high-end Kobe beef from a small ranch funded by a beef-obsessed billionaire, and an attached 10-seat noodle bar; and The Hunted, a similarly whole-animal focused but larger restaurant in a warehouse on an alley just 50 yards away with large tables, an open kitchen, and a rustic Japanese aesthetic, with more of a focus on fire cooking, game meat, and live seafood like lobster and sea urchin.
Sun is a self-taught chef whose family is from Hong Kong, and he's been known in LA for cooking elaborate 10-course meals from fish he's caught and game he's killed himself. He keeps a blog called The Pursuit of Food and an Instagram account, to give you an idea.
The Arsenal is scheduled to open first in the former Showplace Caffe space at Brannan and Harriet. Sun is targeting a July opening, and the place will serve beer, wine, and sake. The noodle bar, mind you, won't necessarily be pork-based ramen, but will feature beef-based broth given the beefiness of the rest of the operation, which will include smokeless barbecue grills on all the tables.
The Hunted, meanwhile, is a larger buildout in a former warehouse, and they're targeting a late summer or fall opening more likely the latter, with the way these things go.
If you want to learn more about Sun's masculine, hunter-gatherer aesthetic, you can watch the very NSFV (Not Safe for Vegetarians) video below.
