Urban Latin Cuisine
The name “Playa” doesn’t refer to geography but to the spirit of L.A.’s open-air, laid-back, coastal lifestyle. In its concept, food, drinks, design, and scene, Playa expresses a relaxed new urban Latin vibe as envisioned by chef/owner John Rivera Sedlar and the creative team who have helped him make the restaurant a reality.
What is “urban Latin cuisine”? Drawn from iconic foods and historic influences across the Spanish-speaking world, it is expressed in casual yet sophisticated dishes featuring ingredients in spirited combinations composed with modern artistry: tapas-sized plates of beautiful, delicious food, accompanied by creative cocktails from master mixologists and the finest wines from the Latin world on three continents.
Sedlar began dreaming of Playa soon after he launched Rivera, near downtown’s L.A. Live, one of the city’s and nation’s most acclaimed restaurants to open in 2009. “Rivera became our contemporary expression of three thousand years of Latin food history, the result of the 15 years I spent traveling, cooking, eating, and researching after I left the restaurant industry in 1994,” Sedlar says.
“Next, I began thinking about an even more personal quest,” Sedlar continues. “I wanted a restaurant that expressed today’s L.A. lifestyle at its best, the incredibly vibrant feeling people have whether they’re at a great movie or at a club, at a party or at the beach. It had to be a casual spot that felt stylish and sophisticated, while also summing up my own lifetime in food.”
Playa does all those things.
It occupies a space that was once the home of Muse, a restaurant that defined über-chic, sophisticated, adventurous, yet relaxed dining in the early 1980s when John Sedlar first arrived in Los Angeles from his native Santa Fe, New Mexico. “I’ve always dreamed about what it would be like to have a restaurant in that space,” he says.
With Playa, Sedlar and business partner Bill Chait have achieved that dream, in a very personal way. “We’ve filled the space with light,” Chait says, referring to the skylights and sunwells in its 20-foot ceiling, its open tortilla bar, its glassed-in kitchen, and the dazzling effect of the restaurant’s new all-glass façade facing the cosmopolitan traffic flow of Beverly Blvd. “Playa comes as close as a sheltered space can be to offering sun-drenched indoor-outdoor dining by day and dining by the moonlight and stars at night,” Sedlar adds. “It has a magical radiance that feels like a perfect, earthy, rustic blend of New Mexico and Southern California.”
7360 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036
323.933.5300
