Lior Scott-Hillel: Following His Heart
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Lior Scott-Hillel, executive chef/co-owner of Bacari Restaurants shares his story about running restaurants and raising a family.
By Jacqueline Fitzgerald
Lior Scott-Hillel, executive chef and co-owner at Bacari Restaurants, has packed a lot of living – and loving – into his 44 years. After growing up in a small moshav in Israel, studying cooking and baking, and serving in the military, he came to Southern California in 2005 to pursue his passion and attend Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena.
Leaving Israel, Lior says, was something of a family decision. “My brother who was in Northridge was pushing for me to move to LA to go to school and start my career say. He had the foresight to know that in Israel there is a ceiling. You need to have a lot of financial backing to operate a restaurant. Without him, I would not be here today.”
As his training was winding down, he set his sights on his dream job – working at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s eponymous, Michelin-star restaurant in New York City – and he made a connection that led to an interview. “I took a red-eye to New York and went straight to the Jean-Georges kitchen. I finished late in the evening, got hired, drove to the airport, landed in LA, and went from there to class. It was a beautiful and quite amazing 24 hours!”
He calls Jean-Georges a great experience and says he learned the importance of discipline in every aspect of the kitchen. He also learned two other lessons: He did not want to do fine dining, and he wanted to prioritize creating a supportive environment for staff.
His vision eventually became a reality at Bacari Restaurants, known for its creative menu and convivial atmosphere, which has locations on West Adams Street and West Third Street, and in Playa del Rey, Glendale, Silver Lake, Sherman Oaks, and Beverly Hills. Bacari Culver City is scheduled to open in April.
Lior says his take on hospitality was inspired by the sense of community he and his two older brothers got from his parents. Mom was the postmaster and librarian of the moshav. His dad oversaw security in addition to running a metal shop. Lior says, “They were always giving, in service to others, asking, ‘how can I help?’”
Feeding people became his way of making them happy. “I started cooking at 13 and I was terrible,” he laughs. “But when I made an anniversary dinner for my parents and saw their excitement and appreciation, that feeling was embedded in me.”
And while his older brothers enjoyed helping at the metal shop, Lior gravitated toward the kitchen. “As much as I loved my Dad – he was a big teddy bear – I always preferred to be in the kitchen with my mom and help her cook for Shabbat or whatever she was preparing,” he says. “There was a different connection between me and my mom.”
He’s quick to remind her she did an outstanding job raising him and his brothers, both of whom are engineers. “I tell her, ‘You have three successful kids. You really nailed it. You have all the bragging rights that any Jewish mother could have!’ ”
The Hillels were a close-knit unit and on holidays like Passover, the extended family would gather. “As a kid we used to do Seder at my grandma’s house and everybody – aunts, uncles, cousins – would come,” he says. “I remember the big glasses and the four questions. I remember the charoset my grandma used to make. We used to finish it before we’d get to the blessing. Everybody would pound on the table and sing the songs. As I grew up, I was known for making a ruckus, I was the fire-starter. Those big family events, I miss them.”
While the special moments of Seders past will always be with him, Lior is creating new memories with his own family. He married his husband Zachery Scott in 2018, and the couple is raising twins, a boy and a girl, who are 2½ years old.
The kids’ birth [via surrogacy] changed his perspective on what it means to be a parent, he says. “I called my mom crying, telling her, ‘I am so sorry for everything I’ve done to you. Thank you so much for keeping me alive and doing all those things for me.’”
(Incidentally, his husband is also the youngest child and “also his mama’s favorite,” says Lior.)
Lior and Zachery had a put-a-pin-in-it type of coming together. After crossing paths in 2007, they reconnected in 2016 when both attended a pride party at the San Diego Zoo. The next day back in LA, they picked up sushi and kombucha at Ralphs and spent hours talking.
“I knew that was it,” says Lior, who was 100% confident in the new relationship. He later planned an impressive proposal – at sunset on the roof of the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem, which offered a beautiful view of the city. They held two wedding ceremonies, one of which was in Israel.
A few people questioned the wedding, he recalls. “I had to make a statement to my family, to show people this is happening, this is healthy, you can build a life.”
His family came around to the idea. Though his dad had passed away, Lior’s aunt on that side spoke at the wedding, along with several others they’d asked to share well wishes. Lior’s brother Tomer told him: “I haven’t been to a more beautiful wedding. Your family and your community married you.”
While Lior and Zachery are not raising their kids in a specific religion, they are passing down traditions they find meaningful, such as family, community, and giving. “There’s a different perspective on holidays like Passover,” Lior says. “Now I feel like it’s a duty or a responsibility for me to have my kids experience it in the best possible way, as a family exercise in togetherness.”
Similarly, they try to host Shabbat dinners once a week. Lior works from home on Friday mornings, which allows him to wake up early and make challah with the twins.
These cozy mornings are a far cry from the frenetic pace of his early days as a chef. So, how did he connect with the brains behind Bacari? When he came back to LA from New York City, in 2008, he needed a job and his search included delivering resumes in person. He stopped at the original location, on West Adams, which was founded by Danny Kronfli, an Angeleno of Lebanese descent, and a partner (who was later bought out by Danny’s brother, Bobby). Then called Bacaro, the upstart eatery featured an innovative menu based on cicchetti (Venetian small plates).
To say it was a little different from Jean-Georges would be an understatement. Lior remembers: “It was a Friday and Bacaro was the last place I stopped in. Danny, who is a big gorilla and a handsome man, came out and greeted me. He showed me the kitchen and it was basic. Everything was in grocery bags, and there was no organization on the prep table. But I liked it, and I liked the space. We had a great interaction and I told him I could start the next Friday.”
One snag: Danny hadn’t offered him the job. But, two hours after Lior left, Danny called and hired him.
Not surprisingly, success wasn’t instant and Lior says the first year was very rough. “Some days, only a handful of people would come in.” he says. “Until we had a story in Westways Magazine, and, lucky us, we were on the cover. It was a picture of my bruschetta. That flipped the switch, and the next week there was a line of people out the door.”
Lior faced a personal setback in 2009. “I was in the kitchen at Bacari when I got the phone call that my father passed away. Not being there was devastating,” he says.
Now, he’s grateful he can visit his mother every three months, including a trip in March to celebrate her 78th birthday.
His thankfulness extends to many aspects of his life, including the success he’s had with his business partners. “All three of us are grateful for every person who chooses Bacari over another restaurant,” Lior says. “We really, truly care, and we want to make sure they’re having the best time. It’s kind of our secret sauce.”
Of course, the food, drinks, atmosphere, and music must be right. “Hopefully, people will be present and won’t be on their phones,” he says. “This is what I do in my own home when I’m having people over, and I get to do that at work as well. Seeing people enjoy the experience is so rewarding.”
For the record, when he’s a guest at someone else’s home, Lior recognizes the cook’s thoughtfulness and effort, no matter the menu. “I’d be happy with a hot dog,” he says.
Paramount to exceeding customers’ expectations is providing consistently excellent service from the moment they walk in the door. “If I go to a restaurant and the first interaction, the face I’m seeing, is not smiling and welcoming, I turn around and leave,” he says. “If this is the intro to what I’m going to have here, I’m not interested.”
And if diners don’t have a good experience at Bacari, they take it with the utmost seriousness. Lior explains: “We make sure we address every single issue, and we look into what might have gone wrong. We never try to minimize their experience. I really want people to be happy – that’s very important – and I’ll use every tool in my bag to make sure it happens.”
He’s equally quick to grab his tool bag for managing and motivating staff, noting that he sees people, not employees. “This is a collective thing,” he says. “My dream – without the 500 people who are doing the work, day in and day out – is nothing. I’m privileged, I’m grateful, and I make sure they know it.” Lior is proud to report that the turnover rate at Bacari is about 15 percent, well below the industry average of 80 percent, he says.
The staff’s loyalty could be a result of Lior’s unconventional, intuitive style. “I choose to lead from the heart, and what I’m teaching my executive team is not to shy away from that and to ask questions,” he says. “For example, we had one chef who was unhappy, upset about his pay. Something in my heart was saying there’s something bigger than the money. I said, ‘How’re things at home?’ He was broken into pieces. He started crying, I started crying. I got up and hugged him. I said, ‘It’s not about the money, it’s about whatever you’re going through. What do you need?’ ”
Whether it’s a colleague, friend, or family member, Lior doesn’t help out in half-measures. As he puts it, “I would go above and beyond for everybody I care about and love and wish well for. I want to make sure that the people I love know how much I love them.”
