It’s hard to name a restaurant as grand and gala as the new Casaléna, concealed on a side street off Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills.
The destination restaurant that comes closest is the fabled Saddle Peak Lodge, also hidden from view at the cusp of Malibu Canyon and Las Virgenes roads in what’s technically Calabasas — though, like Casaléna, it seems to inhabit a land all its own. At various times in the past, the space has been home to Lautrec, Piacere and, most recently, The Villa, which was certainly memorable, but (in memory) much darker than Casaléna. It was a restaurant from another era.
But Casaléna — where the sun always seems to be shining, be it day or night — feels like a restaurant of the moment. It easily could be dropped on the Malibu coast, where it would fit perfectly with its open décor, its classically modern cooking, and the small army of high-steppers looking for a seat at either the indoor, or the outdoor bars.
If you want to go where it’s hip and happening in the West Valley, Casaléna should be on your speed dial.
The restaurant is built around a fictional character named Lena (the name translates as “Lena’s house”), a “fictional world … a radiant house of light. Her profound understanding of light and color enables her to craft a world emanating warmth and illumination, drawing visitors into its embrace … inspiring solace, hope and wonder.”
The description goes on like that for six paragraphs, along with busts of the fictional Lena scattered around the restaurant. Her name is on cans of tomato sauce in the kitchen as well. The branding is strong, but it’s not what draws in the crowds.
For me, at least, the big draw is just … being there. One warm evening, I recently sat at the end of the indoor bar, sipping a classic gin martini with a green olive in it, and staring in wonder at the Fig Old Fashioned — a concoction of both American rye and Irish whiskey, fig cordial, fig bitters, orange oil…
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