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Enter the Drago
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| Celestino Drago (right) and Matteo Fernandi in the 9,500-square-foot space that will become Drago Centro. The $7 million Italian restaurant is slated to open in late September on the ground floor of City National Plaza. Photo by Gary Leonard. |
A Celebrity Chef Takes on a $7 Million Transformation Of a Former Bank at City National Plaza
by Richard Guzman
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Chef Celestino Drago has faced plenty of challenges throughout his culinary career. But it is unlikely that any of them compare to his task of transforming a former bank in Downtown Los Angeles into a destination restaurant.
Not only does he have to make a sprawling, 9,500-square-foot financial space homey, but he has to incorporate the bank's vault, complete with two-foot-thick walls. Still, this effort, and its $7 million price tag, sparks a certain pleasure for the 50-year-old chef.
"It's exciting what's going on Downtown. It's nice to see the city of L.A. really having a centro, which is the center of the city in Italian, and that is where we got the name, Drago Centro," he said during a recent tour of the space on the ground floor of City National Plaza.
Drago Centro, a 250-seat, contemporary Italian restaurant at 525 S. Flower St. (in a former Bank of America branch), is being billed as a luxury dining place for the Downtown business and residential communities. The team behind it hopes that the restaurant, slated to open in late September, will compete with established eateries such as Cicada, The Palm and Zucca Ristorante.
The restaurant will feature vaulted ceilings, black Murano glass chandeliers and a dining room with walnut tables and white leather chairs. A separate lounge/bar will be outfitted with white carrara marble, which is traditionally used in Italian bakeries; the space will offer "bar food" such as antipasti dishes and salami and cheese, along with cocktails.
The focal point will be a 16-foot-high floor-to-ceiling glass wine tower, which will specialize in bottles from Italy, France and California.
The restaurant will also include a patio and a private dining room. A demonstration kitchen in the bank's former vault, which is separate from the restaurant's main kitchen, will be visible from Flower Street.
The vault will hold 40 people and will be used for private events and wine tastings. It will include closed circuit TV cameras that will broadcast the demonstration kitchen happenings to diners.
"We're going to have a chef here that's only going to cook for the people in this room," Drago said. "It's going to be a chef menu; the chef will decide what to make considering the fresh ingredients that are available that day and you come in here and you'll have your six, seven courses."
"We want to make sure that the Italian experience is recreated here Downtown," added Matteo Fernandi, Drago's partner in the project and the general manager of the restaurant. "We want to be an extension of your home dining room."
Drago and Fernandi, both Italian natives, went to great lengths in the effort for authenticity. The pair traveled through Italy for several weeks, visiting many well-known restaurants to reacquaint themselves with their home cuisine.
Although the menu is still being designed, Drago said it will include traditional dishes "revisited" to fit local customers. Entrees will likely run $25 to $35.
Industry Veterans
The partners both have impressive resumes. Fernandi was the general manager and helped Wolfgang Puck launch the Beverly Hill steakhouse Cut in 2006. He has also worked as general manager for Spago of Las Vegas.
Drago has made his name over more than 15 years running restaurants in Southern California, and he currently owns three: his flagship Drago Ristorante, which opened in Santa Monica in 1991, and Beverly Hills establishments Enoteca Drago and Il Pastaiao. He also owns Dolce Forno, a Culver City bakery. He was named Best New Chef by Food and Wine Magazine shortly after opening his first restaurant in Santa Monica.
"He's quite a force in the industry, very, very popular," said Joan Luther, a longtime Los Angeles restaurant publicist and consultant (she is not involved with Drago Centro).
Although this is his first restaurant in the community, Drago's reputation and food, she said, are already familiar to many in Downtown.
"A lot of Downtown people live on the Westside, and he's been in Santa Monica forever, so I would say he's very well-known here," she said.
That reputation helped convince executives at Thomas Properties Group, which owns City National Plaza, to lobby Drago to open a Downtown establishment (a Downtown outpost of Chaya Brasserie is also coming to the building). After purchasing the two towers and the underground mall for $270 million in 2003, Downtown real estate legend Jim Thomas launched a massive, $125 million renovation that has boosted occupancy in the office buildings and upgraded the formerly dreary shopping center. The ground-floor space has long been a priority.
"Downtown needed a good high-end Italian restaurant to continue the buzz and excitement all the new restaurants are bringing Downtown, with this one being sort of the crown jewel of them all," said Kent Handleman, vice president of Thomas Properties Group.
Expensive Proposition
The location on the ground floor of City National Plaza will add to the restaurant's appeal, Handleman said.
"We're going to have a good amount of excitement," he said. "It's right on the plaza. It's very easy for anybody Downtown to get to it."
Then there's the price. Although $7 million sounds like an exorbitant amount to spend on a restaurant, Drago contends that considering the size of the project, coupled with the challenge of converting the former bank space, the cost is not at all outrageous.
"When you have almost 10,000 square feet, $7 million is almost $700 a square foot. [It] is not too bad," he said.
For Los Angeles-based architect Stanley Felderman of Felderman + Keatinge Associates, the challenge was turning such a large space into a warm and welcoming environment.
"There is not an area in the restaurant where you'll feel like you're sitting in the wrong place," he said. "There are always good sightlines. There are a lot of windows. The colors and materials we used are very warm and familiar, the woods, the leathers."
Felderman notes that the bank vault was a particularly tough challenge.
"We had to go through two feet of concrete and cut ventilation holes in the vault itself. It was a lot of work, but it's worth it because it's going to be a very unique space," he said.
Although he has been in the restaurant business for decades, Drago's excitement over his first Downtown outpost was obvious as he stood in the middle of a dusty construction site.
"I always loved Downtown," he said. "Now that the area is changing, it's encouraging. It encouraged me and Matteo to come Downtown."
Contact Richard Guzman at richard@downtownnews.com.
page 1, 8/18/2008
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
Not only does he have to make a sprawling, 9,500-square-foot financial space homey, but he has to incorporate the bank's vault, complete with two-foot-thick walls. Still, this effort, and its $7 million price tag, sparks a certain pleasure for the 50-year-old chef.
"It's exciting what's going on Downtown. It's nice to see the city of L.A. really having a centro, which is the center of the city in Italian, and that is where we got the name, Drago Centro," he said during a recent tour of the space on the ground floor of City National Plaza.
Drago Centro, a 250-seat, contemporary Italian restaurant at 525 S. Flower St. (in a former Bank of America branch), is being billed as a luxury dining place for the Downtown business and residential communities. The team behind it hopes that the restaurant, slated to open in late September, will compete with established eateries such as Cicada, The Palm and Zucca Ristorante.
The restaurant will feature vaulted ceilings, black Murano glass chandeliers and a dining room with walnut tables and white leather chairs. A separate lounge/bar will be outfitted with white carrara marble, which is traditionally used in Italian bakeries; the space will offer "bar food" such as antipasti dishes and salami and cheese, along with cocktails.
The focal point will be a 16-foot-high floor-to-ceiling glass wine tower, which will specialize in bottles from Italy, France and California.
The restaurant will also include a patio and a private dining room. A demonstration kitchen in the bank's former vault, which is separate from the restaurant's main kitchen, will be visible from Flower Street.
The vault will hold 40 people and will be used for private events and wine tastings. It will include closed circuit TV cameras that will broadcast the demonstration kitchen happenings to diners.
"We're going to have a chef here that's only going to cook for the people in this room," Drago said. "It's going to be a chef menu; the chef will decide what to make considering the fresh ingredients that are available that day and you come in here and you'll have your six, seven courses."
"We want to make sure that the Italian experience is recreated here Downtown," added Matteo Fernandi, Drago's partner in the project and the general manager of the restaurant. "We want to be an extension of your home dining room."
Drago and Fernandi, both Italian natives, went to great lengths in the effort for authenticity. The pair traveled through Italy for several weeks, visiting many well-known restaurants to reacquaint themselves with their home cuisine.
Although the menu is still being designed, Drago said it will include traditional dishes "revisited" to fit local customers. Entrees will likely run $25 to $35.
The partners both have impressive resumes. Fernandi was the general manager and helped Wolfgang Puck launch the Beverly Hill steakhouse Cut in 2006. He has also worked as general manager for Spago of Las Vegas.
Drago has made his name over more than 15 years running restaurants in Southern California, and he currently owns three: his flagship Drago Ristorante, which opened in Santa Monica in 1991, and Beverly Hills establishments Enoteca Drago and Il Pastaiao. He also owns Dolce Forno, a Culver City bakery. He was named Best New Chef by Food and Wine Magazine shortly after opening his first restaurant in Santa Monica.
"He's quite a force in the industry, very, very popular," said Joan Luther, a longtime Los Angeles restaurant publicist and consultant (she is not involved with Drago Centro).
Although this is his first restaurant in the community, Drago's reputation and food, she said, are already familiar to many in Downtown.
"A lot of Downtown people live on the Westside, and he's been in Santa Monica forever, so I would say he's very well-known here," she said.
That reputation helped convince executives at Thomas Properties Group, which owns City National Plaza, to lobby Drago to open a Downtown establishment (a Downtown outpost of Chaya Brasserie is also coming to the building). After purchasing the two towers and the underground mall for $270 million in 2003, Downtown real estate legend Jim Thomas launched a massive, $125 million renovation that has boosted occupancy in the office buildings and upgraded the formerly dreary shopping center. The ground-floor space has long been a priority.
"Downtown needed a good high-end Italian restaurant to continue the buzz and excitement all the new restaurants are bringing Downtown, with this one being sort of the crown jewel of them all," said Kent Handleman, vice president of Thomas Properties Group.
The location on the ground floor of City National Plaza will add to the restaurant's appeal, Handleman said.
"We're going to have a good amount of excitement," he said. "It's right on the plaza. It's very easy for anybody Downtown to get to it."
Then there's the price. Although $7 million sounds like an exorbitant amount to spend on a restaurant, Drago contends that considering the size of the project, coupled with the challenge of converting the former bank space, the cost is not at all outrageous.
"When you have almost 10,000 square feet, $7 million is almost $700 a square foot. [It] is not too bad," he said.
For Los Angeles-based architect Stanley Felderman of Felderman + Keatinge Associates, the challenge was turning such a large space into a warm and welcoming environment.
"There is not an area in the restaurant where you'll feel like you're sitting in the wrong place," he said. "There are always good sightlines. There are a lot of windows. The colors and materials we used are very warm and familiar, the woods, the leathers."
Felderman notes that the bank vault was a particularly tough challenge.
"We had to go through two feet of concrete and cut ventilation holes in the vault itself. It was a lot of work, but it's worth it because it's going to be a very unique space," he said.
Although he has been in the restaurant business for decades, Drago's excitement over his first Downtown outpost was obvious as he stood in the middle of a dusty construction site.
"I always loved Downtown," he said. "Now that the area is changing, it's encouraging. It encouraged me and Matteo to come Downtown."
Contact Richard Guzman at richard@downtownnews.com.
page 1, 8/18/2008
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
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