Sam's Club

SBE Will Tack Cleo Formula On To An Italian Restaurant

Sam will see if it sticks, then bring it to the rest of the country
Sam will see if it sticks, then bring it to the rest of the country Photo: Glue Moon via Flickr

OpenTable recently announced its national 50 Hot Spot Restaurants and L.A.’s share was dominated by SBE-operated flash like all three Katsuya locations, Cleo, and The Bazaar. Counter to our theory, an OpenTable rep stressed to us that this wasn’t the result of letting Sam Nazarian vote a few thousand times, but actual results from actual users. So we guess it should come as no surprise that the nightlife operators are going even bigger into the dining scene.

There’s that glossy redressing of Papaya King coming to Hollywood, and today The L.A. Times introduces us to Mercado di Vetri, an Italian restaurant coming to the West Hollywood home of nightclub Mi-6, which Nazarian once claimed would be “another level of sophistication” for the L.A. club scene.

Mercato di Vetro will be a traditional Italian restaurant under Danny Elmaleh, the same chef who brings decent, dressed-up Mediterranean to Cleo and makes fans of The Hills foam at the mouth and declare it the greatest restaurant to ever grace Earth. Elmaleh will design a menu of pasta, pizza, seafood, antipasti, and meat dishes here, with the hopes of opening in September. It will probably look really cool, be noisy, have pretty good food, and cause said Hills fans (and maybe S. Irene Virbila) to again rave.

Like typical nightlife dudes running their own restaurants, the company is already figuring out how to make this joint proliferate like its Katsuya, Hyde, and Cleo lines, even before getting the food straight, as Nazarian is reportedly looking to its success so he can spin off a few carbon copies for the rest of the world.

Mercato di Vetro, 9077 Santa Monica Blvd. West Hollywood.

SBE to open Papaya King, the Sayers Club, Mercato di Vetro Italian restaurant and a lounge called the Library in the Redbury Hotel [LAT]

SBE Will Tack Cleo Formula On To An Italian Restaurant