Here's a look at new Los Angeles hotels, restaurants, private rooms, and other spaces to open for events this summer. The new and renovated Los Angeles venues are available for corporate parties, weddings, fund-raisers, outdoor functions, business dinners, teambuilding activities, conferences, meetings, and more.
In April, the 1933 Group unveiled a dramatic revitalization of Highland Park Bowl, originally established in 1927. The space remains true to its Spanish Revival aesthetic and Prohibition-era roots and now has eight bowling lanes plus dining and a bar. The space is available for full buyouts for 350 people. A private room, Mr. T’s Room, holds 60 for receptions. The venue has a colorful history: An on-site “pharmacy” once provided prescriptions for medicinal booze, which people could then drink along with their bowling experience.
Actress Jessica Biel is a partner in the restaurant Au Fudge, which opened in March. The concept is family-friendly dining in an environment chic enough for adults, too. The 4,200-square-foot venue includes an indoor dining room, patio, retail space, and various activity and event areas. These include a “creative space” with arts and crafts and games, as well as a small treehouse-like space, accessed by a spiral staircase, and strewn with cushion seating. Combined, the spaces seat 200. Vintage and antique accent pieces and reclaimed wood floors contribute to the eclectic decor in the venue, recognized as the Environmental Media Association’s first Green Seal restaurant.
Viceroy Hotel Group has rebranded the property now known as Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills. After a 10-month transformation from interior design team Smith/Firestone Associates, the hotel has unveiled 116 redesigned suites, revamped meeting spaces, the new French bistro Avec Nous, and other upgrades. Starting at 650 square feet, rooms in the all-suite hotel are the largest guest rooms in Beverly Hills, and are decorated in shades of grey and purple with details such as Venetian cut-glass mirrors, white onyx marble details, and bespoke artwork. Runway-like dressing rooms are appropriate for a Hollywood crowd. The hotel’s presidential suite is equipped with five French door balconies featuring sweeping city views, a living room with crystal lighting fixtures, a full kitchen and dining room for entertaining, a screening room with plush chaise lounges, a study with fireplace and chess table, and a private spa treatment room.
The Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills has augmented its event offerings with a function space known as Il Posto adjacent to the restaurant Culina, Modern Italian. The natural light-filled Il Posto has residential-like decor and a patio accessed by glass doors that lends itself to receptions. Inside, there is room for 100 for a reception or theater-style event, or 70 seated at round tables. Additionally, the room features a 170-inch built-in screen with a Dolby surround sound system for movie screenings. It opened in March.Â
In April, Le MĂ©ridien Delfina Santa Monica debuted SandBox, its new bar and indoor gaming room. Taking inspiration from the nearby Santa Monica beach landscape and so-called Silicon Beach locale, the 950-square-foot lounge offers interactive experiences for guests, with swinging Eero Aarnio Bubble chairs and a 4.5-foot custom-designed dartboard. The venue features double-sided 65-inch Samsung Smart TVs, Sony gaming, and classics like shuffleboard, billiards, and a life-size Jenga game. Artist Grey Malin designed the mural backdrop. The venue serves breakfast, transitioning in the afternoon to a full-service bar. The capacity for receptions is 50.
In May, Mozza alum David King debuted a new restaurant and craft cocktail bar in Little Tokyo. Baldoria offers shared plates from executive chef Duke Gervais, who creates globally inspired family-style bites paired with King’s house-made, bottled craft cocktail selection. The seating and service style, plus the family-style menu, are all meant to reflect a celebratory experience. Design features include communal high-top tables, and the space is available for buyout with room for 60 people seated inside, or 80 including the patio.Â
The Lincoln bar opened in April in an area of Venice otherwise known for bike shops and auto dealerships. The venue comes from partners Jeffrey Best and Kenneth Jones, partner/designer Matt Winter, and head bartender Cameron Dodge-White. The Lincoln’s clapboard street frontage recalls the area’s industrial heritage in the 1930s through 1950s, and the venue includes furnishings and design authentic to the era. The interior and open patio include salvaged wood re-milled from a 1940s structure; other industrial and automotive accents include wood and metal patio furniture, ship’s lamps, incandescent ceiling lights repurposed from long fluorescent tube fixtures, stools made from automobile jacks, metal fire doors, and a wall and ceiling decked in hundreds of pounded-tin battery covers. The design showpiece is a rare 1927 Model T Roadster. There’s room for about 150 guests for a reception.
In April, the Peninsula Beverly Hills opened a new terrace for its restaurant, the Belvedere. (The terrace opening comes on the heels of the Belvedere’s full interior remodel.) The expansive garden-like alfresco space has lush landscaping, French limestone fountains, and an outdoor fireplace; French doors and windows give it a European courtyard feel. Hammer-finished banquettes and tables are set around a 30-foot Italian Cypress tree. Executive chef David Codney’s Mediterranean-inspired menu and cocktails are available in the space, which has room for 100 seated guests or 150 for a reception.Â
After a three-month, $2 million renovation, Westwood’s Napa Valley Grille reopened in March, commemorating the restaurant’s 15th anniversary. The 372-seat restaurant’s dining room, private event spaces, and patio were all revamped with new furniture, lighting, and decor meant to reflect the wine region. Renovations have doubled the private event space, which now includes upgraded audiovisual capabilities as well as a new private room encased with wine storage. Updates to the 60-seat patio include new furniture and a lounge area. The bar area has expanded seating with room for 50. The restaurant also has a new executive chef, Adrian Vela.
Fast-casual and healthy eatery Greenleaf Chopshop opened a new Venice outpost in March. The location, which also offers catering, is courting businesses for events and activations. The venue also owns the adjacent parking lot to expand available space. The eatery seats about 50 inside and another 50 outside; for special events it can add seating to accommodate 150 guests.
