Bar Fortuna Is Coming to Main Street From the Crudo e Nudo Team

Brian Bornemann is opening a second Santa Monica restaurant. Bar Fortuna is planned for 2917 Main Street, one block from Crudo e Nudo, in the space that most recently held Vamos Vamos. The project surfaced through an ABC license filing first reported by What Now Los Angeles, and is targeting an early fall debut.

Where Crudo e Nudo built its reputation on raw seafood, Bar Fortuna turns toward pasta. Reporting in Forbes describes handmade pasta and farmers market plates as the spine of the menu, alongside Italian-style cocktails. The wine list is being designed by J.D. Plotnick. Jose Morales, Bornemann's longtime sous chef, is expected to run the kitchen as chef de cuisine.

The Crudo e Nudo backstory

Bornemann is a Santa Monica native. He opened Crudo e Nudo with Leena Culhane in 2021, growing it out of a crudo-focused pop-up the two started in 2020 into a permanent storefront in Ocean Park. Before that he cooked at Michael's, The Tasting Kitchen and Viale dei Romani, where the crudo program that became Crudo e Nudo first took shape. By the restaurant's own accounting, it has since landed on the Los Angeles Times 101 Best Restaurants list in 2023 and The Infatuation's Best New Restaurants in LA in 2021.

Forbes also described a preview dinner ahead of the opening at Betsy in Altadena, where Bornemann cooked alongside Tyler Wells and sent out handmade pasta under lamb ragu.

Bornemann's team declined to share further details when contacted by the outlet that first reported the filing. No opening date has been confirmed beyond the early fall window, and FJM will update this post when one is announced.

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