In April 2026, after less than a year of operation, Top Chef winner and Los Angeles chef Mei Lin stepped away from her Beverly Hills restaurant, 88 Club, alongside an exit from Szechuan fried chicken joint Daybird. That month, Lin told Eater that she
stepped away from restaurants to focus on doing her “own thing” and “reset.” After a brief closure, 88 Club will now reopen as Tiger Tiger on August 29, under the leadership of one of the original opening partners, Francis Miranda. In contrast to the more glamorous, higher-end initial plan for the space, the restaurant’s new iteration will feature a more expansive menu spanning a range of Chinese regional influences at a more affordable price point.
Miranda says the separation from Lin was mutual. “I think that we were just in different directions,” he says. “The former version of it was very chef-driven, and this version of it is going to be a lot more guest-driven. We just had different philosophies about what the restaurant needed to become.” Miranda adds that 88 Club’s menu was small and labor-intensive, and while guest feedback was positive, the price point did not encourage repeat visits. “Rather than defending something that wasn’t connecting, we just decided to change it,” he says.
Tiger Tiger will be led by Taiwan-born chef Michael Chih, who has more than 51 years of experience in restaurant cooking. He started his career at 16 in his family’s restaurant Deer Spring, before moving to the U.S. in 1984. Over the decades, he worked at restaurants in California, New York, and Maryland; most recently, he cooked at Alhambra legend Jiang Nan Spring. For Miranda, Chih is the right chef to guide the restaurant into its new era. “Every time I’ve thrown anything at the wall with him like, ‘Hey, do you think you can make a dish like this?’ He’ll literally, in a millisecond, say, ‘I have the recipe. Try this. Tell me what you think,’” Miranda says.
Tiger Tiger will serve dishes such as glistening, crispy black pepper filet mignon crowned with cilantro; crispy crab rangoons; glazed General Tso’s chicken; and a Szechuan whole fish. Chih’s sweet-and-sour pork is a favorite of Miranda’s: “It’s a staple of Chinese cooking,” he says. “If a chef can’t get that right, then we have bigger problems to worry about.” Also find other Chinese classics such as salt-and-pepper shrimp, fried rice, and mapo tofu bathed in a red-hued chile sauce. Miranda says the new menu reminds him of the banquet-style Chinese restaurants he grew up eating in with his parents in the San Gabriel Valley.
Dish price points for Tiger Tiger will also differ from its predecessor. Final menu pricing is still being worked on, but Miranda estimates that a meal could come in at around $120 for two, with individual dishes priced in the $20s or $30s, and a house-special lobster closer to $40 or $50. “I think Tiger Tiger will be the place that people will come eat once a week instead of trying it once and saying, shit, it was 350 bucks for me and one person to eat,” Miranda says.
The interior of Tiger Tiger, designed in collaboration with Alexis Readinger of Preen, will remain largely the same with some updates to the art and seating. Expect the collection to be more Chinoiserie-focused, with a smattering of tiger motifs throughout.
The flip into Tiger Tiger comes amid a pervasive feeling of hospitality industry–wide anxiety as closures pile up and restaurants continue to struggle with rising costs of doing business. “There’s so much uncertainty in restaurants right now, and we’re seeing some really big, amazing, talented people pour their heart and soul into their restaurant only for it to close in a year or two years,” Miranda says. “I wanted to do my best to not fall into that as well.” With Tiger Tiger, he hopes to make a bid to turn the restaurant into a neighborhood staple that will encourage repeat visits.
