The Iconic Hollywood Restaurant La Dolce Vita Rides Again

This means bringing in new—but not obviously so—details, like a cheetah print carpet, reupholstering the circular booths with Bordeaux-colored leather, painting the brick (inside and out) a muted lilac, adding emerald pony hair walls, and installing a burlwood bar and display shelves. Everything looks right at home in the space, and like it could be from the ’60s—in a good way. 

The team is nothing if not obsessive: think vintage sconces, refurbished Italian chairs from the ’80s, handmade Tiffany-style table lamps, and custom-made replicas of the Charles Hollis Jones’ Frank Sinatra bar stool. They even created their own family crest-style stained glass cheetah emblem to adorn the kitchen windows and impart some pop to the clubhouse-style restaurant. 

“We noticed many old-school Italian restaurants had animals often associated with luxury Italian car brands as their emblem,” says Rose. “We went with the cheetah, which can be seen throughout the restaurant on the carpet, stained glass, the front door handle, and in small touches like our business cards.”

Still, they were careful to maintain the most iconic touches in the original, such as the beloved gold-plated placards on certain booths to honor the starry clientele that sat at that table most frequently—Frank Sinatra, the Reagans, and Don Rickles each have one. “These have been remade or refreshed and will still have a home in the space,” says Cohen. Other Sinatra details include a lithograph titled “Fly Me to the Moon,” created and signed by the man himself, on loan from his family.