Enrique Olvera, the famous Mexico City chef behind restaurants such as Pujol in CDMX and Cosme in New York, is planning to open a modern marisqueria in Venice this summer with a menu of ceviches, fish tacos, cocktails and fresh tortillas.
San Damián will open in the former Atla space after nearly two years of vacancy and will be led by Olvera’s team from Damián in downtown L.A., one of the city’s 101 best restaurants.
“It’s a lot of what we’ve been building since we opened in 2020 downtown,” said Damián executive chef Chuy Cervantes, who will also oversee the Westside offshoot. “[It’s] a lot of the same ethos and ideas, and I’m hoping to bring that out to the Venice community.”
Olvera and his restaurant group Casamata launched Atla’s Venice outpost in 2023 after introducing it in New York City in 2017. The L.A. location closed in 2024.
On Thursday morning, Atla announced it would close its original New York location too, posting to social media that “the time has come to reinvent ourselves.”
In an email statement, Olvera told The Times that Atla’s all-day concept was not the right fit for Venice, and that the months of vacancy were necessary to find the right successor.
“We took our time developing the concept,” he said, “and wanted to find the right partners.”
Ultimately, Olvera looked to his own group and said that given the positive reception of Damián and its tandem Arts District taqueria, Ditroit, he tapped Cervantes, who has worked with the restaurant group since 2014. Olvera said they hope to open their latest collaboration in June.
Inspired by the proximity to Venice Beach, they brainstormed an L.A. ode to the Pacific Coast’s mariscos culture, drawing from a range of regions including Baja, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Acapulco, Ensenada and the California coast.
The project will also be overseen by Damián general manager Carlos Garcia.
Cervantes said it was always the Damián team’s intention to be more seafood-focused, but once they settled into the Arts District’s more industrial neighborhood and felt a pull toward the cuisine and communities of Boyle Heights, their more coastal plans took a backseat to becoming “a more masa-focused restaurant.” With San Damián, they plan to realize that original goal.
The same molino and masa program that powers Damián and Ditroit will also supply San Damián with fresh masa, tortillas and tostadas, but they‘ll be used for items like a seafood tlayuda topped with house-made tuna chorizo and slivers of sea snails. Another new dish, the ceviche Californiano, is a ceviche made entirely with the state’s ingredients: fish from the California coast, spot prawns, spiny lobster or uni from Santa Barbara and vegetables from the Santa Monica farmers’ market.
San Damián will serve a small rotation of tacos, perhaps more traditional, Cervantes said, than what can be found at Ditroit: a classic Baja-style fish taco and an al pastor taco.
“I don’t want that to be the most challenging part of the menu,” he said. “I want that to be your comfort. I want that to be your go-to, even if you just want to come in for a taco and a beer. I want that to be super available to everyone.”
The bar program, while still in development, is set to involve agave spirits and Mexican wines, with many sourced from the Valle de Guadalupe. The chefs hope that the space, which seats roughly 70, will harken a beachside moment full of natural light, plates of bright seafood and cold, frosty drinks.
“I think L.A. kind of has its own feel to it, as far as those flavors are concerned,” Cervantes said of the city’s own breadth of mariscos restaurants. “I’m trying to pinpoint what that is exactly, finding those similarities within the different marisquerias here. San Damián is kind of like my point of view, and highlighting those influences that I’ve had here. I’m super inspired by them and the work that they do.”
San Damián is slated to open this summer at 1025 Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice.
The post What’s next from Mexico City’s Enrique Olvera? A new mariscos restaurant in Venice appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
