A year and a half after being brought in as executive chef, Logan Abbe will serve his first customers at Jaja this weekend during a run of private events. The restaurant will open to the public on Tuesday, February 3rd, 15 months after a car crash caused the Ohio City restaurant to abruptly close in late 2024.
Being put out of commission from the jump, Abbe had plenty of time to contemplate big-picture topics like, “What type of restaurant do we want to turn this into,” he explains.
Along the way, Abbe’s kitchen was completely revamped, with the former wood-fired grill suite being jettisoned and replaced with more conventional cooking equipment. That gave the chef the freedom to shift away from previous Jaja identities that were tied to live-fire cooking, such as Argentinian steakhouse fare…