Casa Madera Restaurant Opens at the Mondrian Los Angeles Hotel

In 1996, hotelier Ian Schrager, along with SkyBar’s Rande Gerber and designer Philippe Starck opened the 30-foot “doors to Wonderland,” as the Los Angeles Times put it, with the Morgans Hotel Group transformation of the Mondrian Hotel. 

The L.A. Times described the vibe as “chilled glamour achieves a dreamlike sensuality. … Its public spaces … are fashionable playpens for people who want to be seen. Sited across from the House of Blues at what will be Sunset’s most invigorated corner, the Mondrian is Schrager’s most ambitious and enchanting space to date.”

Related Stories

In 1999, on the heels of their success in New York City with the same concept, restaurateur Jeffrey Chodrow debuted Asia de Cuba as the hotel’s signature dining spot and it became an instant hit, calling down the glitterati from the hills and beckoning the wannabes from all over.

As Asia de Cuba provided an artery into SkyBar, some visitors quickly caught on that to crack that tough door, one could book a room at the hotel and make a dinner reservation among the gargantuan flower pots and framed windows of the hotel’s restaurant.

One such social hacker, Tosh Berman, co-founder of hospitality group Noble 33, recalls that moment in time.

“I’ve always loved this location. I was always enchanted by Ian Schrager and Philippe Starck. For my 21st birthday, I came to L.A., and I got rooms at the Mondrian — dinner at Asia de Cuba — mainly so I could get into SkyBar, which is what everybody did,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter during a walk-through of the space. “I sat right here in front of this window.”

Fast forward 20 years to Jan. 14, and the story has come full circle with Berman, along with Noble 33 co-founder Mikey Tanha, opening the 200-seat Casa Madera, the second outpost of their Mayan Riviera-inspired restaurant, inside the former Asia de Cuba at Mondrian. (Casa Madera debuted in Toronto in April 2022.) Celebrities going in for that first bite of coastal Mexican cuisine have included Quavo, Anderson .Paak, Ty Dolla $ign, Beck, Jonathan Cheban, the Selling Sunset cast, DJ Myles O’Neal and Murda Beatz.

After Asia de Cuba closed in 2013, Brian Malarkey’s Herringbone and then Ivory subsequently occupied the space. The Mondrian Los Angeles recently underwent a $19 million renovation for the redesign of the hotel.

Casa Madera is the follow-up to Berman and Tanha’s 8-year-old dining hit Toca Madera — the original located only a half-mile away from the hotel.

“The two brands are drastically different yet complementary — they have their own feel so they’re not competitive and they don’t cancel each other out,” says Berman. “Casa is the counterpart to Toca: lighter, more airy.”

Berman likens the food at Toca to Mexico City in inspiration and presentation, in contrast to the seafood-driven Casa Madera, which represents the flavors and influence of Mexico’s beach towns.

Crafted by Noble 33’s corporate executive chef AJ McCloud, the menu features rich dishes such as Duck Carnitas Tacos; Dover Sole in caper brown butter sauce; sea scallop and striped bass aguachile and the Earth + Sea, made up of a filet and poached lobster in madeira cream sauce. With the show always top of mind, the Torre de Mariscos overflows with oysters, mussels, jumbo shrimp, lobster, king crab legs and lobster.

Known for a beautiful hand-drawn cocktail menu and fiery presentations, corporate beverage director Carla Lorenzo crafts libations with house-made tri-pepper juice, passion fruit, tamarind, papaya, cactus and mole, with an additional spotlight on zero-proof and low ABV options. The Playa Paraiso marries Altos blanco tequila with tropical nuances such as watermelon, coconut water, benedictine, lime, agave, eucalyptus and cinnamon fog. The zero-proof La Fuente uses a Seedlip Grove base with coconut water, lime, blue spirulina and spiced demerara.

“We’re 85 percent organic, and we bring in all our ingredients from the best sources around the world, including joining the Japanese Kobe Federation,” Berman says. 

The 8,000 square-foot Mondrian restaurant occupies a unique vantage point on the Sunset Strip — ground-level entry with a panoramic view of the city and a sight line all the way to the ocean. This million-dollar vista, famously framed by outdoor windows, remains the space’s stalwart design element. Designed by Noble 33’s in-house design firm Monochrome Concept, Casa Madera is 75 percent outdoors. Structurally, this called for a massive retractable glass roof to make it usable 365 days a year. 

“If the venue gets a little louder at night, we have to be cognizant of the hotel guests so we can close things off, if it’s raining, if it’s sunny,” Berman says.

The Casa Madera palette embodies modern organic design with rustic wood finishes, teak, hand-woven furniture and natural earthy textures. Rope-and-thatch pergolas enshroud the outdoor dining and lounge space with fire features. At the center, a large bar separates al fresco tables and booths from two indoor dining rooms and private dining space. Toronto floral artist Lauren Wilson was commissioned to artistically weave plant life throughout. 

The space outside the restaurant features stadium seating and built-in areas for Champagne buckets for those without reservations, especially hotel guests.

“We’ve realized the importance of every seat, and because of our high volume of reservations, we need to make sure that there’s never an opportunity that’s missed,” Berman says. “Most of our guests like to do a two- to four-hour dining experience, which is two hours of dining and then two hours of lounge or bar.”

Operationally, Casa Madera is able to achieve this by staying open late and creating an atmosphere that evolves as the night goes on — an indoor-outdoor bar and lounge as well as dual DJ booths.

“As the night builds, the lights come down, the music goes up” Berman says. “We walk that fine line of making sure that we don’t evolve into a nightlife venue. We have a DJ and theatrical elements, but it’s a careful process.”

Berman and Tanha first met in a Las Vegas nightclub in the mid-2000s. “We were the only two people standing up having fun,” Berman says. “Everybody at the table thought they were too cool. I kind of looked over and Mikey was there and I said, ‘Hey, want to be best friends?’”

Tanha, whose first career was in finance, grew up in the Bay Area and bounced around through L.A., Orange County and Las Vegas. 

Berman, a competitive skier, got his first job in a kitchen when he was in high school and moved on to work in the front of house, the bar and later in management before transitioning to masterminding nightlife customer development and programming at L.A.’s hottest clubs.

Between their design and hospitality and business and finance backgrounds, the two made the perfect pair.

“I loved certain elements of nightlife, the creation and the grandeur. I love that you could create something that energized people. But the late nights and the overconsumption of alcohol and all the things that went along with it were elements of my past, and I no longer found myself wanting to spend time in the nightclubs,” he says.

Toca Madera debuted in 2015, and it was the first step in the evolution of Berman moving away from clubs into dining hospitality but holding on to the cool factor of a nightlife experience. 

“I wanted to have a place where I could engage with friends, have a great glass of wine, not just share 1942 tequila in a polycarbonate glass,” Berman says.

Along the way, the two have learned by trial and error.

“L.A. is the most fickle restaurant market I’ve certainly ever worked in. And success is finding a location you can eventually turn into an institution. With Toca it took seven years, but I think we’re pretty much there,” Berman says.

Adds Tanha, “You can provide an experience, but if your food isn’t good, they won’t come back. They’ve had the experience once, they’re fine. It’s that balance of experience and culinary.”

Under Noble 33, Berman and Tanha take a fully vertical approach to each project.

“All the music we produce in-house. We are curating and developing all the details, so everything that you hear, touch, feel, see is custom and bespoke. We create all the furniture from the ground up. We design all the lighting fixtures, and of course, the food and beverage program. It’s really about creating these custom touch points that make the brand unique,” Berman says.

String-instrument players, electric violinists, cellists and acoustic guitar players integrate into the environment, adding to the magic.

“We knew we wanted a predominantly outdoor location that was really centered under the sun and stars. People are going to really want to sit as close to the windows as possible outside. But then we also have these incredible half-moon booths with fire elements,” Berman says. “It’s really about understanding that people can go anywhere to get food and that means we have a much bigger job and the clientele has a much higher expectation of what we can provide.”

Tanha says this is a homecoming for the duo as they have spent the last few years expanding their hospitality empire. In addition to Toca in Las Vegas and Casa Madera in Canada, they have also opened two Sparrow Italia concepts — in DTLA and in London’s Mayfair neighborhood. Future Toca Madera cities include Miami, New York and Houston.

“You want to be a place where people come every week, a couple times a week,” Tanha explains.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qbvLpbCwp5%2BZv6a8zqurnqpemLyue8uinZ6rpK65pnvLop2eq6SuuaZ5zZ6urGeTlsCiecyam56qkWK%2Fpr%2FTmqyrmZ6peq67zZ2popmeYrmwv4yapaCdnJrAbrTOrZylZWFngHZ%2Fj2psb3Ff