SPIN: A Love Song, a restaurant, and a Cookbook

A Love Song, a Restaurant, and a Cookbook

Nikki Hill and Claire Wadsworth turned a remote desert outpost into one of California's most beloved restaurants. Now they're telling the story with a series of four EPs and a cookbook

Written by Steve Hochman | June 22, 2026 - 8:30 am

Remember a time when you first heard a song that changed your life? Nikki Hill really remembers when she first heard singer-songwriter Claire Wadsworth’s “Vows.” Every detail.

“It was at our wedding,” Hill says, laughing alongside Wadsworth as the two Zoom from the kitchen of their home in the Southern California high-desert town of Landers.

That was March 18, 2015, at their ceremony near a waterfall outside of Solvang, just north of Santa Barbara.

“Her sister was our officiant,” Hill says. “And she knew what Claire was going to do. I had no idea. So they were both like, ‘You should go first, you should say your vows first.’ And I thought long and hard and had this heartfelt thing to say. And then it was Claire’s turn to go and our friend handed her a guitar and I was like, ‘Oh.’ And she just played it, looking at me, playing her little blue acoustic guitar.” 

“And I was crying. Her sister was crying. And then I noticed like, literally, our whole wedding party behind was also just welled up in tears.”

Both of them wipe away tears as Hill tells this, 11 years later.

“And yeah, I’d never heard it before the day we got married.”

Even for those who weren’t there, the song is incredibly moving. It’s a highlight of a new EP by Wadsworth under her performing name, C’est Claire, the first of four Songs of La Copine sets being released, one at the start of each season this year. The music serves as companion to the pair’s just-published book of recipes, photos, and stories of La Copine, the acclaimed restaurant they opened in an unlikely, isolated spot in nearby Flamingo Heights, merely six months after their wedding. 

Together, the book and songs tell the story of their love and life together in food and music.

“It’s not in chronological order, but it does start with the first song I wrote about Nikki, and ends with the most recent song I wrote about where we’re at in this second decade in the desert.” Wadsworth says. “But everything in between is like, customers that came in and were inspiring me in a way.”

To say La Copine is in the middle of nowhere is not entirely accurate. But by the standards and expectations of five-star eateries, close enough. You drive a couple of hours east from L.A. to the town of Yucca Valley, then turn north from Highway 62 on the wonderfully named Old Woman Springs Road and go another nine miles or so, past the Giant Rock Meeting Room pizza parlor and the Dollar General store and not much else, then come to a modest little building that you’d probably drive right by if you weren’t looking for it. 

Sure, Palm Springs revived its hipness quotient with Rat Pack patina, and Coachella became a global brand thanks to the music festival. But those locations are still a good hour away.

That hasn’t been a hindrance to people coming in impressive numbers, nearly from the start. 

“Memorial Day 2018 or 2019 we were on a four-hour wait just an hour after we opened,” Wadsworth says. “And people were like, ‘This is a good problem.’ And I was like, ‘No, it’s not.’”

“People are mad now,” Hill says about the crush.

“They drove all the way up here, so we knew we had to figure it out,” Wadsworth says.

They did, but the count of people making the trek has been steadily strong, some stupendously notable names among them. Most have been delightful.

“Robert came, two days in a row,” Wadsworth says, Robert being Plant. “He spent much of his time in the restaurant talking to people. ‘Hello, I’m Robert Plant, I was in a little band called Led Zeppelin. You may have heard of it. I do have a blog.’”

In its 11 years, La Copine has become a cultural centerpiece of the area along with Pappy and Harriet’s, the music venue and saloon in nearby Pioneertown which has hosted intimate concerts by Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, and Plant, and the Integratron, the historic sound-bath dome attracting a steady stream of those seeking healing, awareness, or calm meditation. In the book, Hill and Wadsworth credit a session at the dome with manifesting a piano they’d wished to have at La Copine (a local out of nowhere, dropped one off a few days later). And that, perhaps, helped manifest a performance in the restaurant by Patti Smith, who in 2021 with bandmate Tony Shanahan playing sang “Because the Night” to a small group of friends and staff there during a private dinner held for her, one of four she’s had there in connection with Pappy’s concerts she’s done. (You can find a clip of that on La Copine’s Facebook page.)

The menu, of course, has a lot to do with the attraction. Some random page-turning in the cookbook paints a mouthwatering picture: Page 66, Smoke & Hash (“roasted Yukon Gold and sweet potatoes with poblano peppers, tomato chutney, fried eggs, and avocado with cactus hot sauce”). Page 135, Whiskey Brisket (“smoked brisket sandwich with red-eye barbecue sauce, Copine mayo, and spicy peperonata”). Page 175, Socarrat (crispy saffron rice with charred romano beans, oyster mushrooms, piquillo peppers, basil, and lemon”). 

But there’s more to it than the food. 

“It kind of feels like the center of the desert out there,” says Courtney Barnett, a La Copine regular who became friends with Wadsworth and Hill  when she moved to the area for a few years in the late 2010s. “Just the amount of people I’ve met through them over the years, just being there, it all feels very organic and natural. There’s no kind of weird networking feelings or anything like that.”

Other devoted fans include Kim Gordon, Tegan and Sara, Jenny Lewis, Warpaint’s Emily Kokal and Stella Mozgawa, Sharon Van Etten, Foo Fighters’ Nate Mendel, and Josh Homme and various Queens of the Stone Age guys, among others.

“The entire band of Big Thief came in and they said, ‘We’ll have one of everything on the menu, times two.’” Wadsworth says. 

“This is the kind of place that you’re going to look at the scenery and not worry about the famous person sitting four tables over,” Hill says.

“They go unnoticed,” Wadsworth adds. 

Not all have been so delightful.

“There was that one time we had Elon Musk come in and, ugh,” Wadsworth says. “He had bodyguards and security. We’ve also had some crypto tech bros come that send people in to sign up on the walkup list.”

“And sit and wait,” Hill says. 

“And hold a table for them until they arrive,” Wadsworth says.

“You can’t do that here,” Hill says. “It’s also so ridiculously not needed.”

They turn away TikTokkers and influencers looking for free meals, and the celebs who do come know that they can just blend in. 

“Usually I’m really good at making sure that if an artist comes in and they sit down, I’ll go to the [music] playlist and take their songs off,” Wadsworth says. “I missed one when Kurt Vile was in there and his song came on. He was there with Courtney and Stella.”

She went to him (a fellow Philadelphian) and offered to take it off.

“He was like, ‘No, I actually love it. This is the first song that Stella and I recorded together. Keep it on.’”

The customers and community figure strongly in the making and sound of the album. Two key locals are David Catching, guitarist of Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal and the owner of Rancho De La Luna studio in Joshua Tree, where much of the album was made, and Christopher Thorn, formerly of Blind Melon and currently of the Afghan Whigs, whose Fireside Sound studio was also used for some of the sessions. Both play on the album, with guitarist Josh Sonntag, bassist Jon Ossman, and drummer Denny Weston Jr.—the instrumental trio Los Poncho Tones —as the core band, covering an impressive, seamless range of sounds.

The first EP starts with the scene-setting “Loving You,” followed by a sparkling version of (speaking of Robert Plant) Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” and then the tear-bringing “Vows,” matching the pastoral sound of the Zep song with Wadsworth’s lovely, rich voice set in guitars and Mellotron. It closes with “Bon Voyage,” Wadsworth singing “Can’t you see it now, this is our ticket babe somehow.”  

It’s the couple meeting and falling in love (when Hill was hired by Wadsworth to cook for a house party in Philadelphia), then leaving Philly (where they had a brunch cart, the first La Copine, French for girlfriend), moving to L.A. (where Hill cooked in a series of restaurants and Wadsworth worked at the famed recording studio the Village trying to get a foothold in the music world) and then making the leap into the desert unknown.

The second EP, coming out the first day of summer, sees them settling in, finding their place. That’s baked into the song “Down,” which came about when a benefit concert a bit further east in Twentynine Palms was cancelled due to weather, leading to a spontaneous jam at Rancho with Peter Buck, Barrett Martin, Barnett, Thorn and others.

“She sat down and started playing the electric piano,” Catching says. “And everyone just followed it. And the next thing you know we had a song, because it was a beautiful song.”

The next day, Catching, Thorn, Martin, and bassist Jonathan Hischke gathered with Wadsworth at Thorn’s studio, and within a couple of hours had the song finished. It was the first recording for what became the La Copine releases, but also a door opening for a long-held dream.

“What we’ve been doing for the last 11 years is her passion, what she is truly meant to do,” says a proud Hill. “And before we met, she went to Berklee College of Music. So it’s this 11-year-plus journey of finding her space, and also being frustrated that she’s not available all the time to go jump in and play and do what she wants.”

“Maybe I wasn’t ready,” Wadsworth says. “My grandfather wanted to be a jazz musician, and couldn’t,” she says. “My dad wanted to be a musician, and couldn’t. Like they were told by society, you’re not allowed to do this. So why should I be able to?”

That stuck with her through Berklee and through L.A. But then…

“Cut to the desert,” she says.

Here she met others who had found freedom in a supportive community. She connected with producer/engineer Charlie Stavish (Ryan Adams, Jenny Lewis, Starcrawler) and together they made two C’est Claire albums, helping Wadsworth find her artistic voice. But it was not something she shared readily, even with those with whom she was becoming friends, leading to a series of surprises. 

“She told me she was a musician and we hung out a few times,” says Warpaint’s Kokal, who in 2018 bought a house in Landers, in part “because it’s seven minutes from La Copine.” “We went to their house and I saw the instruments. But I hadn’t heard anything yet. I think the first song she sent me was ‘Lesson Learned’ off of her first album. I’m an ’80s baby, ’90s child and she really scratched an itch. What a powerful voice. And I couldn’t believe someone could be that busy and turn out music that was so professional, quote unquote. It’s so emotional and beautiful and it reminds me of all the music I love so much, like Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette. But she’s just not self-conscious, really straightforward, in person as well.”

Thorn, too, got to know her through the restaurant and mutual friends when he moved to Joshua Tree around the same time La Copine opened, but he only had a vague sense that Wadsworth had her musical side before the “Down” sessions.

“I didn’t [know] until I heard her sing,” he says. “And I was absolutely floored by her talent. And it was like song after song. I kept hearing these songs from her and was really blown away. She’s such a secret weapon. I’m like, ‘My goodness! You’re one of the greatest songwriters!’ It’s just unbelievable. But hopefully now it’s not going to be so much of a secret.”

It was similar for Barnett, with a big epiphany coming last year when Wadsworth opened for her, playing some of the new songs, at an outdoor show at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, a meeting grounds featuring Frank Lloyd Wright-built cottages and a little amphitheater. 

“She has such an incredible voice,” Barnett says. “That night in Joshua Tree, it felt quite ethereal. It had to do with the setting and it was just a really magical night.”

Catching sees it all reflecting what Hill and Wadsworth have created in Flamingo Heights.

“The music fits really well with the style of La Copine,” he says, citing the family feel of the restaurant’s staff. “The food is a little bit different from what most people serve, especially out here. The music’s a little bit different too. It’s a little cabaret, a little love song. There’s so much love you put into cooking and music, and that’s where it gels together.”

The stunted musical ambitions of Wadsworth’s father and grandfather echo in the four songs on the third EP in fall. With three sad waltzes followed by a somber piano ballad, she taps a dark side, as well as her deep love for Tom Waits.

I was raised to tolerate things, she sings in the Kurt Weill/cabaret-ish waltz, “It Runs in the Family.” Don’t judge me. I don’t take it lightly.

“Fall is the one that I really get to say all the things I’ve never been able to say,” she says. 

“It feels like there’s your own self-shame on that,” Hill says. “So many of us can relate to it, but you make it so playful. And yes, it is a super-dark theme.”

The song is about growing up with a father who carried the weight of a traumatic childhood and has suffered with addiction and illness.

“It’s so hard to watch, and you just want to tell him, ‘Just pick up your guitar, just go play. You’ll feel better,’” Wadsworth says. “And that’s something Nikki tells me all the time when I get in the grind. And at least I’m doing what I love. I’m good at La Copine and I’m not working an office job that I’m miserable at. I’m really lucky I get to have La Copine. And my dad did say, ‘You’re the only people on this planet that I know who are doing what they love. I was like, ‘What?’ And I was like, that’s so sad.”

Hill has advice for him, or anyone in a similar place: “Make more friends.”

“He needs better friends,” Wadsworth says, laughing. 

The way to do that?

You feed them good food…”

“They will invite you over,” Hill says. 

Wadsworth mentions seeing Anthony Bourdain’s 2011 “No Reservations” episode on Joshua Tree, featuring Homme and Catching and Rancho de la Luna, as well as the mystical nature settings. 

“That whole episode, we could name every person on it,” she says. “Those were the people I just wanted to hang out with. It wasn’t like I wanted to ride their coattails. I wanted to talk with them and work with them and hang out and cook.”

She takes a breath.

“And that’s our life now,” she says. “We’ve completely manifested this life that we didn’t think was possible.”

If it sounds like fodder for one of those triumphant curtain-closing numbers you’d hear on Broadway, that’s exactly what Songs of La Copine’s finale, “Who Knew,” feels like. Wadsworth’s voice soars over music that evokes the breath-taking vistas of the wide-open high-desert landscape as she sings, fulfilling their vows:

Who knew we’d end up out here

Who knew they’d call us pioneers

We let our imagination run wild

And threw our inhibitions to the wind