Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

L.A.’s Got Kosher closes restaurant to focus on challah

A stalwart of the Los Angeles kosher restaurant scene has closed its doors, citing the pandemic’s effect on business.

The kosher Tunisian restaurant Harissa and its adjoining bakery and deli Got Kosher have closed for good, chef and owner Alain Cohen announced on Sunday.

“We have been losing money for months and it is not possible to do more,” Cohen wrote in a statement posted to Instagram.

Cohen, whose pretzel challah is the Got Kosher brand’s most well-known product, added that he plans to make bread the sole focus of the company going forward.

Based in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, where Cohen established Got Kosher as a catering company for several years before the sit-down restaurant opened in 2010, Got Kosher was an original: a place whose menu reflected the Mizrahi heritage of not only its founder, but also L.A.’s growing French Jewish scene.


Get the Forward’s “Letter from California” delivered to your inbox. Sign up here to receive our lively and provocative insights, news, opinion and inspiration from the state at the leading edge of the Jewish future.


But patrons, judging by Yelp reviews, complained of slow service, and in 2019 the restaurant was forced to close temporarily following a failed health department inspection. Harissa memorably tried to disguise its ‘C’ rating — which must be posted prominently in a store window — with a larger sign next to it enlarging the ‘A’ in the restaurant’s name.

Still, Cohen offered kosher Angelenos an international variety of flavors: Harissa’s complet poisson, pulled brisket sandwiches and house couscous all earned fans.

Cohen’s runaway hit, however, was Got Kosher’s challah, braided with pretzel dough and pocked by kalamata olives or Belgian chocolate chunks. The success of the pretzel challah — sold both at the Pico Boulevard location and at local Whole Foods stores — will be the lynchpin of Cohen’s next venture, which will retain the Got Kosher brand name.

In his announcement, Cohen said “the lack of customers, the lack of employees, the lack of revenues and the decision of the landlord to sell the building” drove the decision to close. He did not reply to a request for comment emailed Monday.

Know something? Send tips to [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.