Winter Restaurant Rush
Lodge Bread Company, West Hollywood listings, Damian, Amanemu, Snowpine Lodge, winter Fridays, comedy benefits, Valentine's reservations, MORE
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Bakery
Sourdough comfort
Cinnamon rolls as big as your head, the city’s best shakshuka, and a smoked pastrami sandwich stacked with havarti to rival LA’s Jewish deli greats — these are just some of the plates drawing locals to the new Lodge Bread Company in Beverly Hills. Popular belief aside, Los Angeles is a bread town, after all, and Lodge Bread Co.’s paean to the sourdough movement is a testament to that truth. With the original location in Culver City and another in Woodland Hills, the brand’s latest, airy outpost on South Robertson is already a fast favorite among locals. (A fourth branch is coming soon to Pasadena.)
In addition to chef Or Amsalam’s long-fermented, high-hydration loaves, toasts and sandwiches are popular choices on menus that also include a “salads & stuff” section. That’s where the shakshuka lives, along with a couple of other breakfast dishes and a chopped salad — with more havarti. The pick among the breads is the olive loaf with herbs and citrus: Kalamatas and Castelvetranos are folded into the dough, along with dill, lemon, and coriander. I eat it in torn chunks, but toast and top with olive oil and sea salt if you must. –Caitlin White
→ Lodge Bread Company (Beverly Hills) • 295 S Robertson Blvd • Daily 8a-4p.
LA RESTAURANT LINKS: His restaurant survived the Eaton fire, but can it survive the aftermath? • Santa Monica’s beloved Cassia shuttering on Feb 22 • Kismet Steakhouse extended through February • Abbot Kinney expansion: Modern Indian restaurant Badmaash set for this summer… Levain Bakery adding second LA location • SGV’s Yama Sushi Marketplace adds Koreatown outpost • Why après-ski, minus the skis, is everywhere.
REAL ESTATE • First Mover
Three listings that have come to market in the past 30 days in West Hollywood.
→ 8835 Betty Way (West Hollywood) • 3BR/3BA, 1758 SF • Ask: $2.63M • recently built Spanish-contemporary • Days on market: 3 • Agent: Adam Pergament, Keller Williams Larchmont.
→ 744 N Curson Ave (West Hollywood) • 4BR/3BA, 2865 SF • Ask: $2.99M • modern contemporary w/ two-car garage • Days on market: 24 • Agent: Christian Padilla, Kase Real Estate.
→ 831 N Spaulding Ave (West Hollywood, above) • 5BR/4.1BA, 5036 SF • Ask: $4.395M (reduced from $4.495M) • modern abode w/ landscaped backyard • Days on market: 25 (and previous) • Agents: Joshua and Matthew Altman, Douglas Elliman.
WORK & PLAY LINKS: How widespread is post-fire rent gouging? • Beaches from Malibu to Playa del Rey closed indefinitely by fire debris runoff • Did private equity fire truck roll-up worsen the fires? • How LA stacks up in the digital jobs market • Hammer Museum announces artists for upcoming Made in LA biennial • Erewhon planning new Manhattan Beach, WeHo, Glendale stores for later this year • Ready-to-wear suits are better than ever.
WORK • Thursday Routine
La dolce vita
CAMILLA SCASSELLATI SFORZOLINI • co-founder & host, Made IT Podcast • managing director, FGS Global
Neighborhood you live in: Beachwood Canyon
It’s Thursday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I have two lives. I’m am an (Italian) podcast host by night and a corporate communications advisor by day. My day starts early so I can catch up on all my emails, work on my podcast tasks, interview an Italy-based entrepreneur at 730a PT, and then zip to work in Century City.
What’s on the agenda for today?
We're about to launch a new season of our podcast Made IT, where we interview Italian entrepreneurs, so I'm making sure we have some pre-produced episodes ready to go, and thinking ahead to new ones we need to record. My client work for FGS Global is mostly confidential, but I'm lucky to work on interesting, front-page deals and corporate crises that keep me super engaged.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I have friends visiting from London, so I’ve got a packed agenda of showing them my favorite spots. We're going for dinner at Damian, brunch at All Time (I have their salmon bowl every weekend), sushi at Jinpachi, and maybe a drink at The Tower Bar for a full LA experience.
Any weekend getaways?
May not be original but Santa Barbara recently took me by surprise. We indulged in delicious meals — cod wrapped in banana leaves and crispy rice salad at Sama Sama, bold Indian flavors at Bibi Ji 2.0, an indulgent seafood lunch at Clark's Oyster Bar in Montecito, and sun-soaked huevos rancheros at Café Paloma. Oh, and the croissants at Helena Avenue Bakery! A treasure hunt at The Blue Door turned up vintage gems for the home. I just scratched the surface — I’ll definitely be back.
How about a little leisure or culture?
I live close to the Hollywood Bowl and just love going to see concerts there. My favorite museum in LA is the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. It doesn't get enough mentions. Otherwise, I'm an architecture and design lover, and enjoy going to see some of the iconic LA homes... but I still need to make it to the Stahl House!
What was your last great vacation?
We went to Japan on our honeymoon. Our trip highlights: dinner at Sowado in Tokyo, the Nezu Museum in Tokyo and shopping in Aoyama; staying at the Hoshinoya Fuji hotel and summiting Mount Fuji; sushi omakase of Fukagawa in Kyoto and shopping for ceramics at TOSAI; visiting the art foundations on Naoshima and Teshima islands; and staying at Amanemu.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Comic relief
Khamsa: A Night at Zizou • evening of music and dance with all proceeds to fire relief charities • Zizou (Lincoln Heights) • Thurs @ 8p • à la carte
AltComedy All-Stars feat. Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifinakis & Jon Hamm • Fonda Theater (Hollywood) • Fri @ 8p • balcony, $65 per
DineLA • Participating restaurants; every reservation supports wildfire relief (city-wide) • Thru 2/7
GETAWAYS • FOUND Ski
Alta-rnative digs
Renowned as one of the last true skier’s mountains in America (no, snowboards are most definitely not allowed), Alta can be a tricky nut to crack if you’ve never graced its slopes. That stems in part from the fact that it lacks a village of any sort; the resort, such as it is, is a series of hotels and boarding houses that line the side of the two-lane road running up Big Cottonwood Canyon, a 45-minute drive from the Salt Lake City airport. There’s no luxury shopping to be had, and no restaurants outside of the hotels to reserve.
And Alta’s hotels — if that’s even the right word for these throwback ski lodges — aren’t the sort of places to be booked on points. Five of them, all independently family-owned, line the valley from the (extremely) rustic Goldminer’s Daughter and the nicer Peruvian at one end, to the more upscale (but still very firmly set in the ski era of the ‘60s and ‘70s) Rustler Lodge at the other. To further that feel, these lodges all include breakfast and dinner — board, in the parlance — as part of one’s stay.
I’d never skied Alta myself until last winter, when a friend of mine and I sought it out for a February ski weekend. Having not yet made head or tail of Alta’s old-school lodging offerings, we booked at the one new hotel to open in the valley in the past several decades, Snowpine Lodge. Billed as the valley’s first luxury ski resort when it opened in 2019, the vibe is actually one of familiar modern alpine charm, with warm woods throughout its 59 guest rooms, many with balconies. As vertical as the mountain it faces, Snowpine covers six floors, including a spa, as well as two very enjoyable restaurants, Swen’s for fine dining (consider the large format elk osso buco, $160 per) and the casual Gulch Pub for drinks and bar fare (though the mountain’s true après spot is back at the Peruvian — all hail the P-Dog).
As for the skiing, Alta’s terrain and snow need no introduction, but both proved sublime over our three days on snow. Snowpine Lodge is ski-out ski-in, with a private chairlift to hoist one back to the resort at the end of the day — a final luxurious touch. Perhaps next time, we’ll try one of the old-school lodges, but for Alta newbies, a stay at Snowpine Lodge will make you feel like you’ve been skiing these slopes your whole life, and rather stylishly at that. –Lockhart Steele
→ Snowpine Lodge (Alta, UT) • 10420 Little Cottonwood Rd • King rooms from $1059/weekend night.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Are tolls coming to Maui’s Hana Highway? • Netflix opening series-themed restaurant in Las Vegas • Venice in winter, with a poet as our guide.
WORK • Employee Benefits
Endless summer
Legend has it, there were no summer Fridays before Don Draper. Or, at least, his real-life 1960s ad agency counterparts, who (per the NYT) were so eager to be Hamptons-bound that they’d shut down the office by noon on Friday.
Other industries (even those nowhere near the East Coast) eventually followed, and a vague office tradition was born. By the time I entered the Indianapolis-area workforce in the ’90s, “summer Fridays” were listed as a perk in job listings for everything from drug company executive to insurance agent to orthodontic assistant (my then-career, long story).
During the tech booms, the pendulum eventually swung back toward the virtues of the non-stop grind, and calls, emails, and deliverables crept back on many warm-weather Friday calendars. The pandemic pushed it even further. What even was summer Friday if you never left your house in the first place? Besides, closing your laptop to doom scroll on your phone didn’t feel like much of a perk anymore.
But the pendulum may have finally swung back. Go to a gym, beach, or restaurant on any Friday, and you’ll see exactly how far. With fewer official Friday afternoons being freely given by their employers, many remote workers are reportedly taking them all. Slack from a 3p Friday yoga class? Don’t mind if I do.
This may be part of the inevitable March toward a four-day work week. Or maybe it’s just a little post-pandemic worker flex in response to benefits lost. There’s only one way to find out: make it official, and bring back that Draper-era summer Fridays spirit. –Eve Batey
ASK FOUND
Today, three FOUND subscriber PROMPTS for which we seek intel:
What new fitness/wellness trend/class will you take on in the New Year?
What’s your new winter bar?
Tell us a secret about your favorite ski mountain!
Got answers or more questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfoundla.com.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Restaurant Rush, winter 2025
New restaurants for your booking consideration. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@itsfoundla.com.
Bar Siesta (Silver Lake, above), conservas and tapas from Siesta Co. founders and Botanica’s Heather Sperling; sherry and vermut lists, reserve