Hollywood’s Vinyl District Is a New Hub of Design and Culinary Creativity

MagazineHollywood’s Vinyl District Is a New Hub of Design and Culinary CreativityA slew of boutique hotel and restaurant openings have reignited Hollywood and created buzz around a neighborhood packed with vibrant designMarch 9, 2022Image may contain Flooring Furniture Chair Lobby Room Indoors Wood Living Room Hardwood Interior Design and Couch

Los Angeles never seems to lose its allure. But when it comes to Hollywood, it's been a beat since the Hollywood elite actually went to Hollywood, so when Brad Pitt patronized a top L.A. chef’s glamorous new Martin Brudnizki–designed restaurant, it was as if Pitt had singlehandedly christened the neighborhood. Until recently, Hollywood has been known mostly as a place tourists go to party—and see stars’ Walk of Fame handprints—when visiting Los Angeles. Most would agree it wasn’t exactly bursting with aesthetic inspiration or much of a place to hang out in daylight hours. But things have changed, and 2021 proved a major energetic turning point. In less than six months, Hollywood has been reborn as a true design destination (not to mention culinary mecca), thanks to a brand-new neighborhood branded the Vinyl District for its rich musical history. 

One of the show stealers is Grandmaster Recorders. It’s the new 15,000-square-feet, three-in-one culinary venue with the strongest connection to the musical past of the neighborhood. The venue is housed in a former silent movie theater and ex-recording studio where the likes of Stevie Wonder, Beck, Foo Fighters, and Kanye West laid down tracks between 1971 and 2016. Tunes from those years are the only ones played inside Seventy One Studio & Bar, where the former control booth is now a brass bar. Defined as mixture between Brutalist and ’70s glam, the lofty concrete space is draped in lavish gold velvet curtains with brass tables and warm leather banquettes. 

Grant Smillie and David Combes of The Botanical Group (owners of E.P. & L.P. and Strings of Life) are behind Grandmaster Recorders’ Australian Italian restaurant and rooftop bar, which was designed with Melbourne’s Projects of Imagination. Through a compressed entry stacked with vinyl records and oddities, things open to a soaring space topped with tomato-red trusses and structural beams where the juxtaposition of raw and refined continues. An open kitchen acts as Aussie chef Monty Koludrovic’s and pastry wizard Jaci Koludrovic’s stage where they create magic for 150 diners. Upstairs, through an oxblood metal stairway, the Hollywood sign comes into focus for rooftop revelers around terrazzo tables. 

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The entry to Grandmaster Records.

Wonho Frank Lee

The new Thompson Hollywood hotel is another star of the Vinyl District. Located north of Sunset and south of Hollywood Boulevard, the hotel was designed by Tara Bernerd & Partners. “When we were first approached by Relevant Group just over five years ago, I was enthused by their vision for creating a go-to, walkable neighborhood in what had become an overlooked area,” Tara Bernerd says. “We took inspiration from West Coast Modernism, so redolent of California living, then mingled it with a hearty dash of old-school Hollywood glamour, bringing a relaxed yet elegant sophistication to the hotel.” 

A healthy dose of sunlight via floor-to-ceiling windows features throughout the 190-room property, with a photogenic splash of terrazzo, too, used on bathroom feature walls and vanities. Industrial finishes intermingle with rich textures and fabrics, and a deep color was used to set a chic mood across inviting vignettes studded with objects and art that feel storied. The lobby is an entertainer’s dream, cool as you like with the perfect amount of character and funk. The hotel’s rooftop bar, Bar Lis, is like stepping back in time to the south of France in the ’60s, all striped walls, rounded velvety seating, and Slim Aarons originals. The work of Bernadette Blanc transports in the way only Hollywood can, with vignettes that feel out of a French film. Sometime this spring chef Lincoln Carson’s buzzed-about Mes Amis will debut. The restaurant will be a contemporary brasserie dreamed up by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. 

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The terrace at Thompson Hollywood. 

Brudnizki is also behind Mother Wolf, a Roman celebration by acclaimed L.A. chef Evan Funke. The restaurant features a coffered ceiling that marries black-and-white geometry with pastoral trompe l’oeil pomegranate and citrus tile trim, and Murano glass chandeliers. The restaurant anchors the transformation of an archetypal 48,000-square-feet Art Deco building—the original home of the first liberal newspaper in Los Angeles—reimagined by Rockefeller Kempel Architects with creative direction from Blanc. The building is intended as a multifunctional event space. The debut event was the Netflix premiere of Kanye West’s documentary, Jee-nyus: A Kanye West Trilogy, in February, another sign of the entertainment world’s return to Hollywood. 

Twenty-foot high ceilings, awe-inspiring corridors, and monumental staircases are a few hallmarks of the building that’s a 15,000-square-feet canvas for event-design innovation where Funke is also offering curated event dining. “I knew this style of food was going to play well,” the chef says in an interview, “but what I didn’t realize until seeing the space in its final state was how much of an impact the grandness of the room was going to have on guests.” The collective sentiment of some five to seven thousand guests thus far is that it’s immediately transportive. Funke’s goal was to bring opulence back in L.A. dining spots, with sumptuous red leather banquettes, antiqued mirrored columns, and a theatrical open kitchen. “It’s very rustic food borne from pastoral communities, but it looks like you’re in a grand ballroom and Biggie Smalls is on the speakers,” Funke says. 

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The swanky dining area at the Heimat. 

Just a couple blocks south, The Godfrey Hotel Hollywood is sleek, tailored, and a touch quirky. Materials, especially throughout the beautifully accessorized lobby and bar, hark to Hollywood glamour but with a contemporary attitude. The partnership between The Gettys Group and architect Steinberg Hart, with art curation by Kevin Barry Fine Art, is all about fun sophistication with moments of sparkle and wow, like the geometric stained glass wall at the I | O Rooftop. 

A couple of blocks away, a beloved Venice restaurant tapped Studio Shamshiri—their new location’s neighbors—to design and expand their footprint with Superba Food + Bread Hollywood, in a landmarked 1920s building. Organic materials in neutral tones provide a calming palette for a brasserie punched up by statement lanterns, pastel-hued murals, and hand-painted elements by California artist Leigh Wells that are a clear nod to Fauvism and Paris in the late ’20s. 

Later this spring, the world’s first private fitness club concept, Heimat (German for “the feeling of home”), debuts a mile away. It’s 75,000 square feet of wellness and connection via next-gen fitness equipment and programming, a full-service spa, co-working space, pool, outdoor bar, and a Brudnizki–designed and Mediterranean–accented restaurant by illustrious chef Michael Mina dubbed Mother Tongue. A collection of notables were commissioned for murals in the transformed 1930s industrial building with light installations, a sunlit cacti garden, marble, patterned wood floors, and brass mirrors.

The last of the fresh hotels, for the moment, is Tommie Hollywood, which is almost singlehandedly bringing Hollywood’s good-time vibes of yore back. Designed by Studio Collective, it’s full of direct references to case study homes of the late ’50s and ’60s that featured mainly blackened steel, natural stone, and hardwood. “From a distance, the ebonite textural structure reads as the dark horse of the neighborhood by day, yet illuminates as a beacon of energy as the sun sets over the nearby Hollywood Hills,” co-principal Christian Schultz says. The goal was to create a “social oasis within the city”—evident in the eclectic lobby coffee bar and cozily welcoming communal workspaces—which the design studio hopes “allows even the most high-brow of guests to leave their cars and canvas the pavements in a tight radius.” 

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A cozy dining nook at Mother Wolf. 

Though the guest rooms at the Tommie are petite, all 212 of them (including seven suites) pack a punch with their smart marriage of form and function as well as spirited artwork. The groovy rooftop pool—festooned with cacti and a delightfully retro mural—opens up to Desert 5 Spot, a rock ’n’ roll country bar with its own house band. The bar itself seems imported from California’s high desert thanks to warm furniture that the design team sourced entirely from vintage stores in the Southwest, cork ceilings, and cow skulls. Downstairs, a tunnel lined with waist-high lanterns and burning copal leads to a lush hideaway that could easily be in Tulum. Chef Wes Avila’s Ka’teen is the closest thing to the Mexican paradise due to its proliferation of flora, mouthwatering tacos, and inventive cocktails like the Witch Doctor, complete with smoking sage. 

“If every space feels the same, there’s no reason for its existence,” says Ten Five Hospitality CEO and cofounder Dan Daley, a partner with Relevant Group in their $500-million neighborhood investment. “The goal was to create radically different spaces not only from a design perspective, but culinarily, musically, and even from a soul perspective.” And in fact, in these few Vinyl District blocks the whole world is on offer, not just Hollywood. If anything, the distinctive venues and vibes are a reminder that Hollywood, of course, is all about reinvention. 


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Originally posted on: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/hollywoods-vinyl-district-is-a-new-hub-of-design-and-culinary-creativity