You could easily walk past the Hotel Oceana in Santa Monica and not notice the place. I’ve done it a hundred times. Aside from a valet stand with those vertical flame-thrower type heat lamps, the building doesn’t register from Ocean Avenue as one of Los Angeles’s finest boutique hotels.
That’s partly why it’s been surprising lately to hear about the richer details within, and particularly one interior feature that’s been getting buzz: a hidden bathroom people are driving across town to see.
More on that in a second. The Oceana has been a fixture on this stretch of Santa Monica for decades, operating under various incarnations until 2021, when JRK Property Holdings sank nearly $30 million into a top-to-bottom transformation, emerging with the first U.S. property under Hilton’s LXR brand, a portfolio of independent luxury hotels designed to feel like… it’s not a Hilton.
A ‘Jewel Box’ In Santa Monica
The 70 suites now come with Loro Piana bedding, Bottega Veneta bath amenities, and iPads that control the lights. The dining room was a work in progress until last October, when La Monique opened inside the hotel’s existing bones.
Designed by Martin Brudnizki, the London- and New York-based studio behind The Beekman Hotel in Manhattan and The Connaught Bar in London, the 42-seat room is frequently described as a “jewel box” of plush velvet banquettes in emerald and sapphire, with a backlit bar that glows like a very expensive aquarium. Straw-marquetry wall panels are handmade in France by Atelier Lison de Caunes, and there are vintage works by André Butzer and Donald Sultan. When the velvet curtains are drawn, you could convince yourself you’re somewhere on the Côte d’Azur.
Hand-cut beef tartare with house Kennebec potato chips at La Monique inside the Hotel Oceana in Santa Monica.
Hotel Oceana
Chef David Fricaud is a French native and Top Chef France semi-finalist, who worked at Scarpetta in Vegas (he also cooked in Lisa Vanderpump’s massive kitchen at Caesars Palace). Here he serves hand-cut steak tartare with house-made Kennebec potato chips, escargot reimagined as crispy poppers with garlic-herb crème fraîche (the empty shells, Fricaud tells diners, should be sipped like a shot), and a chicken dish, Le Poulet Duo Poêlé and Braisé, that arrives tableside (Apparently, there is also an off-menu burger that Fricaud describes only as “the best in the world”).
The Most Memorable Two Minutes Of Your Evening
And yet, the one details that seems to lodge itself in people’s memories on the way out is something most restaurants don’t spend much time thinking about at all.
That bathroom.
The bathroom that named a restaurant.
Hotel Oceana
It has been called the restaurant’s “most opulent — and unexpected — design factor.” As the Observer writes: “A floor-to-ceiling mirror creates the kind of flattering glow that makes you want to linger. A marble counter. A copper sink. Walls with a textured, palm leaf-like surface that nods, quietly, to the Mediterranean mood of the whole room.” It is, in short, a better-designed space than most Los Angeles restaurants manage for their dining rooms.
The bathroom also holds the key to the restaurant’s name. Olivier Zardoni, CEO of 34th Floor Hospitality, the F&B group behind La Monique, recalls the moment the identity of the place snapped into focus. “While we were working on the design and creating renderings, I realized, ‘Oh, this feels like a woman’s home,'” he told the Observer. “I turned to my business partner and said, ‘I think a woman lives here.’ I pictured her as a madame.” La Monique, the character, was born — and with her, a restaurant designed from the inside out, down to the very last copper fitting.
The restaurant is open nightly for dinner, Sunday through Saturday, 6 to 10 p.m. Reservations at lamoniquerestaurant.com, or by calling the hotel directly.
Walk-ins from Ocean Avenue are theoretically possible, though given how easily you can walk past the Santa Monica hot spot without a second glance, you might want to book ahead so you have it on your calendar.
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