Originally opened inside New York City’s Citizens food hall in Midtown West in December 2021, Casa Dani earned a Michelin star but quietly closed earlier this year. The closure came due to the dissolution of the partnership between SBE, its operating partner Legends, and Brookfield Properties, the food hall’s landlord. Alongside Casa Dani in Century City, Los Angeles’s own Katsuya will open a flagship restaurant with a revitalized 20-year-anniversary menu and add to the Westfield mall’s ever-improving slate of dining options that includes the soon-to-debut Super Peach from chef David Chang.
Dani García is one of Spain’s most acclaimed fine dining chefs, with two-Michelin-starred Smoked Room in Madrid and its Michelin-starred sibling in Dubai. The chef also held three Michelin stars at his eponymous restaurant in Marbella’s luxe Puente Romano hotel, though it closed in 2019. While Spanish cuisine had a hot moment in Los Angeles in 2023, its popularity has waned somewhat with the closures of Gasolina Cafe, Soulmate, Bar Moruno, Saso, Flor y Solera, and Cafe Basque. Still, newer openings like Somni, Bar Siesta, Teléferic, and Xuntos have balanced out those closures, and the incoming Bazaar Meat in Downtown will provide another jolt to the cuisine’s presence in Los Angeles. Bazaar Meat is allegedly built and ready to open inside the Conrad hotel, but its parent company, José Andrés Group, is waiting for a more ideal economic situation in the central business district.
Assuming it’ll reflect its New York menu, the Casa Dani in Los Angeles should distill García’s modern takes on Spanish fare, like croquetas de jamón ibérico, Andalusian-style tuna preparations, paella, and grilled proteins like whole turbot and ibérico pork loin. Katsuya’s Japanese lounge menu of sushi, rolls, and izakaya-inflected dishes will gather some of chef Katsuya Uechi’s greatest hits from over the past 20 years. Both will add dining categories that currently don’t exist inside the Westfield Century City.
SBE, a longtime Los Angeles-based hospitality and nightlife operator, will handle operations for the former monster-sized Rock Sugar space that faces Santa Monica Boulevard. Spanning 17,000 square feet together, the restaurants will boast a garden patio, atrium arrival, and Vegas Strip-style terrace overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Designed by David Rockwell, both restaurants will fit about 400 diners in total.
In the past year alone, Westfield Century City has had a significant transformation as a Westside dining destination, adding South Korean doughnut shop Cafe Knotted, influencer Emma Chamberlain’s coffee shop, Cedric the Entertainer and Anthony Anderson’s AC Barbeque, and popular China-based teahouse Chagee.
