Culinary Magic Thrives at Hatfields’ Eatery

BY MELISSA BEAL Palisadian-Post Contributor On the rare occasion that Karen Hatfield and her husband Quinn are home for dinner, they are likely to be cooking pasta or something similarly simple. At work, however, their culinary creations are much more extravagant. Quinn, an executive chef, and Karen, a pastry chef, opened their own restaurant, Hatfield’s (7458 Beverly Blvd.) in Hollywood last June. Quinn cooks and manages the kitchen, while Karen creates pastries and runs the front of the restaurant. ‘This has been something we’ve been talking about for 10 years, since we’ve been together,’ Karen said. Karen, who grew up in Pacific Palisades, always enjoyed cooking, creating and entertaining. After graduating from Crossroads School in 1994 she enrolled at the Los Angeles Culinary Institute despite having never set foot in a professional kitchen. ‘You don’t have a leg up having cooked as a kid,’ Karen said. By the end of culinary school she decided that she wanted to get into pastry and shortly after finishing school she began her first job at Spago in Beverly Hills, which had just opened. ‘It was insane there, so busy. It was sort of the wrong place to start out,’ she said. ‘Even after culinary school there is so so much to learn.’ After a short time in the bustling atmosphere of Spago Beverly Hills, she moved to the calmer, more established Spago Hollywood to plan desserts. ‘Planning pastries is about the lowest job you can have in a restaurant, but that’s what I was doing and that’s what I wanted to be doing,’ Karen said about her job at Spago, a job made even sweeter by a sous-chef named Quinn. Quinn, originally from North Carolina, where he began cooking right out of high school, had spent the last few years cooking at Postrio in San Francisco when he was offered a position as a sous-chef at Spago Hollywood. He had been there for a short time when Karen was hired and despite restaurant policy, which frowned on managers dating staff, Quinn and Karen went out. They also began discussing opening their own restaurant someday, somewhere in Los Angeles. They would need more experience, though. To get it, they moved to New York. Quinn was offered a job at Union Pacific (he also worked at Jean Georges and Bouley) and his parents had an apartment for him and Karen to live in. ‘It was absolutely the best decision we both made in our life,’ Karen said. Since she did not have a job lined up when they arrived, she would walk the unfamiliar streets of the city entering restaurants she knew nothing about, asking if they were looking for a pastry chef. She soon found herself creating pastries at Gramercy Tavern, Jean-Georges Vongerichton’s Mercer Kitchen, Jojo and Vong, building her reputation as a fantastic pastry chef. ‘In most fields, the best is in New York,’ Karen said. ‘If you want to compete at that level, you have to be in New York.’ However, the Hatfields knew they didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives in New York City. After four years and much success they moved to San Francisco and became managing partners and co-chefs at Cortez. ‘We had a clear idea of what we wanted to do,’ Karen said. ‘We wanted this [Hatfield’s], but we weren’t there yet.’ After three years in San Francisco, though, they were ready for their own restaurant. They wanted to control their own menu and the feel of the restaurant so they began looking for an open space in Los Angeles. One day, while looking at real estate with a friend, Karen noticed a little Chinese restaurant that stood empty on Beverly Boulevard. ‘You know, maybe we should forget these bigger spaces and open something small,’ she said. ‘It’s so cute.’ Soon the Hatfields were busy designing the interior and exterior of their new restaurant, revamping the kitchen and planning their menu. Now their nights are spent together in their modern California-French restaurant. Quinn creates entrees like pan-roasted New Zealand Tai snapper and date-and-mint crusted Colorado rack of lamb while Karen creates pastries, inspired by what is in season, like baked lemon custard tartlet with wild huckleberry compote, chamomile ice cream and meringue chip. ‘We’re very happy with it,’ Karen said. ‘It’s great to work for something for so long and have the end result be something you wanted it to be.’