Interiors · Los Angeles
Reading time: 7 minIn Pacific Palisades, design studio Fettle marks its first American project with The Draycott, a brasserie for restaurateurs Matt and Marisa Hermer where European grandeur meets a coral, mustard and green palette drawn straight from the Californian light.
Every design studio remembers its first project abroad, and few make the leap as gracefully as Fettle did with The Draycott. The London and Los Angeles-based practice — whose work at The Hoxton Portland we have admired on these pages — announced its arrival in America with this brasserie in Pacific Palisades: a restaurant infused with European charm and a distinctive Californian twist, and one that remains a benchmark for transatlantic hospitality design.
The Draycott is the flagship of esteemed restaurateurs Matt and Marisa Hermer, and its premise is deceptively simple: take the nostalgic grandeur of the great European brasseries and let it loosen its collar in the Los Angeles sunshine. With striking views both inside and out, a lively atmosphere and a captivating colour palette inspired by its locale, the restaurant quickly established itself as a design-focused culinary destination — and it is not difficult to see why.
A Brasserie, Reimagined for the Palisades
The brasserie is one of the most codified typologies in restaurant design: the mirrors, the banquettes, the bentwood chairs, the practised bustle. The genius of Fettle’s approach at The Draycott is to honour those codes while translating every one of them into a Californian register.
So the classic dark-timber panelling appears, but only to dado height, topped by clean white walls framed with decorative mouldings. The traditional brasserie ceiling becomes a coral-pink coffered composition with intricate cornice details — a stroke of confident colour that bathes the whole room in a permanent golden hour. And where a Parisian room might hang etchings, The Draycott displays a dynamic collection of local and European artwork, including palm-silhouette prints in sun-faded yellows that place the restaurant, unmistakably, on the Pacific coast.
The result is a room that feels familiar on arrival and fresh on every return visit. It does not imitate Europe; it remembers it, fondly, in Californian light.
The setting sharpens the effect. Pacific Palisades occupies a particular place in the Los Angeles imagination — a village-scaled enclave between the mountains and the ocean, more neighbourly than glamorous, where a restaurant succeeds by becoming part of the weekly rhythm rather than a special-occasion destination. The Draycott was conceived precisely for that role: grand enough for an anniversary, relaxed enough for a Tuesday lunch, and positioned, with its park views and generous terrace, at the social centre of Palisades Village life.
“It does not imitate Europe; it remembers it, fondly, in Californian light.”
Custom to the Last Stud
The Draycott champions bespoke design at a level few restaurants attempt: every piece of furniture has been tailor-made by Fettle, aligned precisely with the interior’s vision and its functional needs. This is the same instinct that would later distinguish the studio’s hotel work — rooms composed of considered objects rather than specified packages — and it gives the brasserie an unusually coherent character.
The centrepiece is the marble-topped bar, its surrounding elements arranged in strict symmetry to sharpen the visual impact and lend the room its underlying sense of order. Coral velvet stools line its length beneath a brass gantry stacked with bottles and glassware — a composition that manages to be both theatrical and disciplined, the still point around which the evening turns.
The dining chairs tell the same story in miniature. Inspired by traditional brasserie seating, they are elevated with rich tan leather upholstery, arm pads and stylish stud-work accents — details that reward the second glance and improve with age. Elsewhere, Fettle employs a two-tone approach to add depth to the furniture: bar stools pair light-reflecting leather seats with mohair back pads in matching shades, a refined, soft contrast typical of the studio’s material intelligence.
A Palette from the Coast
Colour is The Draycott’s great charm. The fresh yet bold scheme reflects the restaurant’s Californian setting at every turn: that coral-pink ceiling above, exquisite leather upholstery in mustard and lush green below, mint channel-stitched banquettes running along the walls, and deep sage tufted-velvet booths curving through the centre of the room. Olive trees rise between the tables, their silvery leaves stitching the greens of the upholstery to the daylight pouring through the steel-framed windows.
It is a palette that could so easily have tipped into confection. What keeps it grounded is the material honesty beneath it — parquet floors, honed marble, aged leather, unlacquered brass — and the discipline of the white panelled walls, which give every colour room to breathe. Brass dome lamps glow on each tabletop; globe pendants and sputnik chandeliers spark overhead. The room flatters everyone in it, which in Los Angeles is not a small consideration.
Lighting, in fact, may be the scheme’s quietest triumph. Layered from ceiling to tabletop — chandelier, pendant, picture light, lamp — it lets the restaurant shift registers effortlessly from bright weekend brunch to low-lit dinner without a single change of furniture, the pink ceiling warming from coral to rose as the day fades.
A Terrace for All Seasons
Few settings reward outdoor dining like Southern California, and The Draycott’s terrace capitalises on the climate to let guests dine outdoors year-round. Overlooking Palisades Village Park, the garden replicates the comforts found within: blush-pink upholstered booth seating with stud detailing, crisp white tablecloths, brass lantern pendants and canvas drapery overhead, all set on chevron-patterned tiling with rattan bistro chairs completing the Riviera picture.
Fettle has oriented the café-style seating so that the terrace remains visible from inside — a clever piece of spatial choreography that extends the room’s horizon. Indeed, throughout the restaurant, every seat offers a glimpse of something worth looking at: the stunning bar, the terrace, or the park beyond. In a typology built on people-watching, that is not an accident; it is the plan.
The transition between inside and out is handled with particular finesse. Full-height glazed doors fold back to dissolve the boundary entirely on fine days, while the terrace’s brick arches, wall lanterns and draped canvas ceiling give the outdoor room genuine architecture of its own rather than the usual scattering of café furniture. Even the heaters are integrated discreetly overhead — comfort engineered invisibly, in the best hospitality tradition.
The Queen’s Room
For private occasions, The Draycott offers the Queen’s Room — an intimate dining venue accommodating up to 26 guests, and arguably the most romantic space in the building. Two grand gold-framed French mirrors preside over a long marble table ringed with mustard velvet tub chairs, while vintage glass chandeliers hang from the pink-coffered ceiling above. Salmon-pink drapery softens the large windows, allowing natural light to flood the space by day; by night, the golden tones in the upholstery, accessories and lighting conjure an intimate fine-dining atmosphere a world away from the bustle of the main restaurant and bar.
It is a masterclass in tonal layering — pink upon salmon upon gold upon mustard — held together by the same white panelling and dark timber wainscot that govern the main room. Private dining rooms often feel like afterthoughts; this one feels like a destination.
Smaller styling gestures carry the same care throughout the restaurant. Picture-ledge shelves hold collected objects — clocks, books, greenery, framed prints — above the seating, giving the walls the layered, accumulated quality of a much older establishment. Host stands, side tables and even the smallest lounge corners are dressed with lamps and marble, so that no view in the room ever lands on an unconsidered surface.
The Beginning of an American Story
Viewed from today, The Draycott carries an added significance: it was Fettle’s inaugural project in the USA, the room in which the studio first tested whether its very British sensibility — comfort, craft, collected charm — could flourish in the American market. The answer, evidently, was yes. The transatlantic fluency on display here would go on to shape the studio’s celebrated work for The Hoxton in Portland and a growing portfolio of American hospitality projects.
Fettle’s ability to marry two luxurious worlds set a high standard from the outset, creating a style-driven dining experience where guests instantly feel at home. The stunning palette and meticulous attention to detail reflect a commitment to offering not just a meal but a complete experience — European in its bones, Californian in its blood, and entirely persuasive in both languages.
Some restaurants trade on novelty and fade with it. The Draycott was built on older virtues — proportion, comfort, craft and colour — and that is precisely why, years on, it still looks like the future of the Californian brasserie. When the afternoon sun slides across that pink ceiling and catches the brass of a hundred small fittings, the room performs the trick all great brasseries manage: it makes an ordinary day feel like an occasion, and an occasion feel perfectly at ease.
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