Chaya Venice: A Landmark LA Restaurant Redesigned for the Modern Era - Remodelista
We recently discovered the Mexican influenced work of C S Valentin the design mind behind Hotel Esencia in... Photography by Sean Pierce, courtesy of Bogus Studio. ...Tulum and furniture line Bogus Studio his Bogus partner Alexander Díaz Andersson is behind Mexican furniture company Luteca Chaya Venice near Venice Beach in Los Angeles Chaya Venice has a long history The Venice location has been around for nearly... ...three decades but the same family founded a teahouse near Kamakura Japan in the early 1600s and it s still in operation The revamped bar area, complete with sparse tables and spindle-back benches. The revamped Kaisen Bar, now used to serve daily selections of fresh Japanese fish. The redesigned space is broken into smaller more intimate seating areas like this veranda like area set apart by... ...Japanese screens While the separate seating areas each have their own style Valentin wanted them to feel of a piece The Ingve Chair, plus cocktails. Upholstered chairs surround round tables in a more formal part of the dining room. The lights above the bar (just out of frame to the right) are the Pressed Glass Pendants by Tom Dixon. Behind a banquette reupholstered in neutral olive is the new private dining space, set apart by a cedar framework that evokes traditional Japanese doors. The private dining room references the Okura room at the ancestral location in Japan. “We designed them as a reference to one of the tangerine lacquered bars in the original Hikage Chaya,” Valentin says. The restaurant’s small plates and raw bar items are plated on Japanese stoneware and ceramics designed by a UCLA ceramics professor.