A Party With an Edible Zen Garden

New York Times

07-02-2025

Entertaining With shows how a party came together, with expert advice on everything from menus to music.
The florist Ren MacDonald-Balasia, 35, is known for her bright, tumbling avant-garde arrangements: towers of giant orange orchids for the Hauser & Wirth gallery in Los Angeles; a sweeping, spiky installation of tropical bananas and burgundy hanging amaranthus for the Beverly Hills Loewe boutique. But for the December opening of her new Renko Floral showroom and store in Los Angeles's Chinatown, she stuck to a more neutral palette. Standing near the front of the space was a loose composition of fanlike Bismarck palm leaves and creamy orange banksia flowers, draped with white Dendrobium orchid and tuberose leis that she'd had overnighted from Lin's Lei Shop in Honolulu. In a corner, dozens of Asian pears spilled out onto the floor, shrouded in braided seaweed and white lace-like Micronesian ginger leis.
Designed by the architect Marcela Olmos, 35, MacDonald-Balasia's 1,000-square-foot shop emulates the rusty orange and brown color palette of her beloved Japanese grandmother's home in Hawaii's Manoa Valley. A large cabinet finished in cocoa-colored plaster and reddish wood veneer serves as a partition between a showroom at the front, displaying floral arrangements available for purchase, and a studio in the back.
In a further nod to MacDonald-Balasia's heritage, the chef Angel Dimayuga, 39, transformed the space into a Zen garden for the party. With help from the production assistant Anna Kernecker, 35, they set up an interactive Japanese-inspired landscape of drinks and snacks around the store. For dessert, the artist and baker Rosalee Bernabe, 35, of the cake company Chariot made Hawaiian and Asian-inspired sweets — including coconut sponges with lilikoi curd and orange blossom buttercream — that were designed to match Dimayuga's theme; some were blanketed in edible 'moss' made from crumbled matcha sponge.
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