Travis Lett and the Gjelina / Gjusta tree

Travis Lett is the chef who gave the 2010s its most-copied plate of vegetables. In 2008 Gjelina opened on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice — Fran Camaj’s restaurant, with Lett as chef (the restaurant is named for Camaj’s mother) — and it became the template for an entire look: wood-fired, market-driven California cooking — roasted squash with chiles and yogurt, charred broccolini, vegetable-forward plates styled to be photographed — served in a stripped-back, communal-table room that itself got copied across Los Angeles and then across the country. Gjelina’s plating was arguably the most-Instagrammed food of its era, and “Venice vegetable-forward” became a recognizable national style with Lett’s restaurant as its source code ^[1].

He extended it fast. GTA (Gjelina Take Away) put the food in a grab-and-go window next door. In 2014 came Gjusta, a bakery and deli a few blocks away in the Venice industrial pocket — sourdough, smoked and cured fish, rotisserie, an all-day counter sprawl — and Gjusta arguably surpassed the restaurant in influence: its bread program and its all-day-market model became reference points for the Los Angeles sourdough wave and for a wave of bakery-cafés that followed. In 2017 Lett opened MTN, a Japanese-leaning izakaya, also in Venice ^[1].

Then, in 2019, Lett left the company he had built as chef — selling his stake and ending his partnership with co-owner Fran Camaj, over differences about the group’s priorities and future direction ^[2]. The Gjelina group continued without him, and has even expanded nationally (Gjelina in Manhattan, among others) — the brand and the aesthetic outlasting his involvement ^[4]. MTN closed in the early COVID months ^[3]. Lett resurfaced in October 2024 with RVR (“river”), a modern izakaya at 1305 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in the former MTN space — no signage, a single amber light over the door — which immediately became one of the hardest reservations in LA and was later named Esquire’s Restaurant of the Year for 2025 ^[3].

Direct ventures

• Gjelina (Abbot Kinney, Venice, 2008) — Fran Camaj’s restaurant with Lett as chef; the flagship that defined the Venice vegetable-forward, wood-fired, market-driven Cal-cuisine look; Lett departed the group in 2019, and Gjelina continues — and has expanded nationally — without him ^[1][2][4].
• GTA / Gjelina Take Away (Venice, next to Gjelina) — the counter-service spinoff; part of the group Lett left in 2019 ^[1][2].
• Gjusta (Venice, 2014) — the bakery and deli — sourdough, smoked fish, rotisserie, all-day counter — now arguably more influential than the restaurant; also part of the group Lett left in 2019 ^[1][2].
• MTN (Venice, 2017 – closed) — Lett’s Japanese-style izakaya; closed in the early pandemic ^[1][3].
• RVR (Venice, opened October 2024, 1305 Abbot Kinney Blvd) — Lett’s return: a modern izakaya in the former MTN building; unmarked, instantly in-demand; named Esquire’s Restaurant of the Year for 2025 ^[3].

Partial information: the exact ownership terms of the 2019 sale, and Lett’s involvement (if any) with the Gjelina group’s later national expansion, are documented only in summary; details on RVR’s backing are limited.

Alumni / mentees

This is the tree where the aesthetic travelled more than any single named protégé. Cooks who came through Gjelina and Gjusta before Lett’s 2019 departure carried the vegetable-forward, wood-fire, sourdough-and-smoked-fish vocabulary out across Los Angeles — it shows up in market-driven Cal kitchens and all-day bakery-cafés all over the city — but the press has not built out a tidy roster of “trained under Lett, opened X” the way it has for the Mozza or Animal trees, which is a known gap. Gjusta in particular functioned as a de facto baking school for the LA sourdough wave. After 2019 the alumni story splits: people who left for their own places carry the original DNA; people who stayed are now part of a founder-less brand.

What the tree means

Three things. First, a genuine LA export aesthetic: the Venice / Abbot Kinney vegetable-forward look is one of the rare cases of an LA restaurant style being copied nationally, and Gjelina is its origin ^[1]. Second, the bakery eclipsed the restaurant: Gjusta’s bread, smoked fish, and all-day-counter model became the more durable influence — a training ground for the city’s sourdough wave ^[1]. Third, the founder-departed-but-the-DNA-spread story: Lett left in 2019, the group rolled on (and grew), the pre-2019 alumni seeded the look across LA, and Lett himself only came back, on his own, in 2024 with RVR ^[2][3][4]. The tree’s lesson is that an aesthetic can outrun the person who invented it.