The Hearth & Hound, the Hollywood restaurant opened by chef April Bloomfield and restaurateur Ken Friedman in 2017, closed after dinner service Saturday night.
Bloomfield, who made the announcement on the restaurant’s Instagram account, had acquired Friedman’s share of the Hearth & Hound in June, when their decadelong partnership was dissolved in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal.
Bloomfield posted the announcement as dinner guests were still ordering, and offered no reason for the closing.
Bloomfield did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking further comment and declined to speak to a reporter who approached her during dinner service Saturday.
The large restaurant was packed, inside in the dining room and bar, and outside on the patio. Fires were still blazing in the open kitchen, where Bloomfield was cooking in a blue shirt and apron. She paused occasionally to greet regulars; as diners hugged her, she teared up and wiped her eyes.
The restaurant opened in December 2017, just days before The New York Times published a report in which many current and former employees said Friedman had sexually harassed them physically and verbally; some said they had complained to Bloomfield, and she had failed to stop the abuse.
Bloomfield has said she was unaware of the extent of the harassment of employees by Friedman and chef Mario Batali, but her long silence drew criticism. She first addressed the scandal at length in an October interview in The Times.
Friedman has said he disputes the details in the Times report but apologized for behavior he said “can accurately be described at times as abrasive, rude and frankly wrong.” He did not respond to a text message and a phone call seeking comment.
The partners had poured years and millions into transforming the indoor-outdoor space, which since the 1980s had been occupied by a raffish British-style pub, the Cat and Fiddle.
The space was available when the partners were looking to open in Los Angeles and expand their empire. At the time, they owned or ran six restaurants together: the Spotted Pig, the Breslin, the John Dory Oyster Bar, White Gold Butchers and Salvation Taco in Manhattan, and Tosca Café in San Francisco.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.