One of NYC’s Most Influential Italian Restaurants Is Expanding to Los Angeles

One of New York City’s most heralded Italian restaurants is opening a glitzy new Los Angeles outpost early next year — in Beverly Hills, of course. The celebrity-fueled Manhattan fan favorite Marea will bring its coastal Italian charm and power dining ethos to 430 N. Camden Drive by early 2024 with plans for plenty of housemade pasta and shellfish. The Hollywood Reporter was the first to report on the expansion by the Altamarea group.

Reps for Marea say that the Beverly Hills location will offer many of the same dishes as the New York City original, which has become a destination for countless celebrities and heads of state over the years, including Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and the Obamas. First opened in 2009, the Central Park South restaurant has longtime fans fawning over signature dishes like lobster and burrata, salt-baked branzino, or gnochetti with shrimp. In 2022, then-Eater NY critic Ryan Sutton said that Marea’s well-executed menu and stellar fish made it “still one of the city’s top Italian spots.”

ICrave/Altamarea Group

As for the build-out, ICrave is designing the restaurant with touches of the original dining room. There will be a gold onyx bar in the center of the space, lots of light mahogany wood, and loads of bespoke art and glasswork. In addition to the primary dining room, look for a long patio and two private dining rooms to vie for that ultra-wealthy Beverly Hills clientele dollar. The restaurant is entering a scene with plenty of competition on that front, as names like La Dolce Vita, E. Baldi, Il Pastaio, Nerono, and Jon & Vinny’s all operate nearby.

Beverly Hills has long been a place for popular, often globetrotting chefs to make their name, though lately, it seems as though the out-of-town presence in the 90210 is bigger than ever. Decades after Wolfgang Puck put Beverly Hills on the map to a whole new generation of diners with Spago, another new crop of culinary players has moved in. That includes none other than Salt Bae, who opened directly next to the timeless Spago back in 2021, as well as Spanish celebrity haunt Tatel, which opened the same year, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who opened inside the Waldorf Astoria back in 2017.

Other giant names are still to come, including two from Canada who are opening a restaurant named Stella in the former Madeo space soon. Fellow New York fine dining mavens Daniel Boulud and Daisuke Nakazawa (of Jiro Dreams of Sushi fame) will be here soon, as well as Chicago’s Maple & Ash, one of America’s busiest steakhouses.