Co-Founders Go With Grains at Filipino Eatery

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When chef Charles Olalia came back to Los Angeles after getting married in his native Philippines, he decided to start cooking more dishes that reminded him of home. So he partnered with Santos Uy, owner of prix-fixe Hollywood restaurant Papilles, to create Ricebar, a fast-casual Filipino restaurant in downtown’s Jewelry District.

“It was my 10th year being removed from the country,” Olalia said of his return to the Philippines. “It reminded me again of a lifestyle of cooking.”

Although Ricebar’s 275-square-foot space is small, its downtown location is ideal. Both Olalia and Uy live downtown and they see potential in the neighborhood.

“Half-a-million people work in downtown so everyone is there,” Uy said. “For a casual lunch spot, downtown is the best place to be.”

The restaurant opened last week and is already selling between 150 and 180 bowls a day to customers looking for a quick bite on their lunch breaks, he said.

“It’s lunch and fast casual. It’s something I’ve never done before,” said Olalia, who spent the past five years as executive chef at Patina and as chef de cuisine at Terranea Resort’s Mar’sel.

The partners met when Uy was observing the kitchen at Patina. They kept in touch, meeting for coffee after hitting the gym, and Olalia contacted Uy in March about opening a Filipino pop-up restaurants at Papilles, a venture that ultimately inspired them to open Ricebar.

Ricebar’s cuisine is entirely Filipino, and it uses fair-trade rice that is not genetically modified and comes from family farmers in the Philippines.

“In most Asian restaurants, rice is the filler,” said Olalia, who emphasized that the grain is the most important aspect of Ricebar’s dishes. Everything else is in service to the grain.

Off the Top

While it’s dry as a bone down here, Seattle and downtown Los Angeles apparently have much in common – fairly compact downtown business districts, mountain views, men with hair.

Seeing the similarities, Seattle’s Capelli’s Gentlemen’s Barbershop opened last month on the ground floor of the Citigroup Building, at 444 South Flower St.

The chain, which has three locations in downtown Seattle, chose the Flower location over other parts of Los Angeles and Irvine because of its pace and corporate environment, according to President Simone Loban.

“The vibe was perfect,” Loban said. “It just felt so vibrant down here.”

A Seattle client who had relocated to Los Angeles knew Capelli’s owners were interested in a West Coast expansion and helped sway them into opening here, citing a need for the company’s concept, Loban said.

The 1,100-square-foot downtown location, which she described as a cross between a law library and a cigar shop, boasts leather chairs and dark wood stations.

Loban said the plan was to gain a foothold with the first location, which would be followed by two smaller downtown outposts. Catering to the local community, Capelli’s stays stocked with business magazines for those awaiting custom cuts. “We’re not the hipster barber shop,” Loban said. “There are a lot of those in L.A. We cater to more of an upscale feel.”

Going Deep

Jeffrey Fish is a real estate developer and owner of the Pershing Square Building in downtown Los Angeles, home of popular rooftop restaurant and lounge Perch. In November, he opened Mrs. Fish, a basement-level lounge in the same building.

“He always had a vision of having something high and something low,” said Lauren Doherty, special events manager for Perch and Mrs. Fish.

And with a name like Jeffrey Fish, the new underground lounge naturally had to have an underwater theme – punctuated by one major conversation piece.

“You go down this ornate iron staircase and right in front of your eyes is a 5,500-gallon fish tank,” Doherty said.

Mrs. Fish is open Wednesday through Sunday nights, but the space is available for private events any time. The venue has a vaguely midcentury modern look, with a lot of aqua and gold accents. The menu was created by Perch’s executive chef and features different varieties of caviar.

While downtown’s nightspots are popular with a lot of the neighborhood’s newcomers, Doherty believes Mrs. Fish can serve as a discreet hangout for some of the district’s more traditional denizens.

“We envision a lot of finance guys and lawyers,” she said. “No one can find them here.”

Staff reporters Nicole Piper, Matt Pressberg and Karen Jordan contributed to this column. #DTLA is compiled by Senior Managing Editor Jonathan Diamond. He can be reached at [email protected].

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