Factory Place Hospitality Group is continuing to infuse downtown L.A.’s Industrial District with Italian dining.
After opening Factory Kitchen in 2013 with dishes such as ricotta gnocchi and raviolini di pesce, the restaurateurs have just opened an offshoot down the block called Officine Brera. “Officine” means workshop and “Brera” is an artsy neighborhood of Milan.
Chefs Angelo Auriana and Matteo Ferdinandi, both with years of experience in local Italian kitchens, including Santa Monica’s Valentino and downtown’s Drago Centro, said their upbringing in the Northern Italian countryside along the Po River inspired their “cucina povera” (poor kitchen) style of rustic cooking. Expect to see dishes such as grass-fed veal, grilled octopus and potato gnocchi, with Italian wines selected by Ferdinandi’s wife, Francine Diamond-Ferdinandi.
The eatery, which is racking up solid reviews so far, had been in the works since 2012. It seats more than 100 people in a converted 1920s warehouse near Bill Chait’s Italian hot spot Bestia. The restaurateurs embraced the industrial style popular among many hip downtown restaurants, with brick walls and exposed air ducts. Prices range from $6 for vegetable appetizers to $58 for “carne bovina,” described as wood-charred aged short ribs and ribeye steak with Vidalia onions.
Factory Place says it aims to launch Brera Catering in the next few months and open casual eatery Officine Alimentari by the end of the year.
Sharing Spaces
Co-working space WeWork of New York opened its second office in downtown Feb. 1.
The leased space at the Gas Co. Tower on Fifth and Olive streets occupies about 90,000 square feet of the building’s lobby and three floors. WeWork opened its first downtown location, a 46,500-square-foot space at the Fine Arts Building, in September.
Spurred by $1 billion in investments since its founding in 2010, WeWork has opened five locations in Los Angeles over the past four years, including two spaces in Santa Monica and one in Hollywood. The company has become especially savvy at identifying and leasing buildings in up-and-coming neighborhoods, said West Coast General Manager Jon Slavet.
“WeWork has an uncanny ability to go into markets and identify locations where creators and innovators want to be,” he said. “We felt it was important to have a presence in downtown Los Angeles.”
To maintain its rapid expansion pace, WeWork relies on common materials and designs throughout all of its co-working spaces, said Slavet.
“If you go from WeWork to WeWork,” he added, “you will see there is a core aesthetic in terms of glass, in terms of the furniture, in terms of metals like aluminum.”
Renovations at WeWork’s Gas Co. Tower space are still underway. Only the 34th floor is available for tenants. The 35th and 36th floors, which will be connected by a staircase, will open in the coming months. The ground-floor lobby is also undergoing renovation and will feature food and drinks as well as meeting and events spaces for members.
WeWork’s L.A. expansion is not yet complete, said Slavet.
“We are going to make huge investments in metro L.A. in the next two years,” he said.
Cultural Proprietors
Project Space in the Arts District is aiming to be a cultural hub downtown.
The art gallery, pop-up retail and event space opened last week as the result of a collaboration between New York media and entertainment company Alldayeveryday and Kinfolk, a creative collective in Brooklyn. The 4,000-square-foot space is adjacent to Alldayeveryday’s West Coast office.
Kevin Kearney, managing partner at Alldayeveryday, said the multifunctional venue represents a new venture for the firm, whose New York office is an old three-story firehouse.
“We don’t have a consumer-facing element (in New York),” Kearney said. “Downtown L.A. made a lot of sense to do this because both the rich cultural resurgence and the real estate price point making this all possible.”
The two companies launched the new space with four days of programming, including filmmaker Aaron Rose’s art bar concept, La Rosa Social Club.
The bar featured multiple 3-D installations and a custom interior designed to look like a mix between a Mexican dive bar, a 1960s office building and an underground dance club circa Berlin 1982, according to Rose.
Even though Rose’s installation was only temporary, Kearney said visitors can expect more art and events at the space, in addition to a permanent Kinfolk bar beginning in June.
“We’ll continue to keep our gallery and pop-up retail space as a modular environment that can be flexible and accommodate a range of opportunities,” he said.
Staff reporters Daina Beth Solomon, Garrett Reim and Subrina Hudson contributed to this column. #DTLA is compiled by Managing Editor Omar Shamout. He can be reached at [email protected].
