Brick Lane Opens in Los Angeles Arts District Inspired by East London

LOS ANGELES, May 23, 2026 — Brick Lane, a modern Indian restaurant inspired by the South Asian cultural corridor of East London, has opened in Downtown Los Angeles' Arts District, bringing regional Indian cuisine cooked through contemporary techniques to a renovated 1920s masonry and steel warehouse, with the project led by chef Sanjay Rawat of Kahani at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel alongside first-time restaurateurs Rishma Shariff and Sachin Nayyar.

The restaurant takes its name from Brick Lane in East London's Tower Hamlets, a street long associated with South Asian immigration, curry houses, street art, independent galleries and market culture, and brings that cultural identity to one of Los Angeles' most active dining neighborhoods, where the team hopes to contribute to what Rawat described as the city's growing South Asian culinary scene.

Brick Lane LA Occupies a Renovated 1920s Warehouse in the Arts District

The physical space sets the tone before a plate arrives. The building, a masonry and steel warehouse dating to the 1920s, has been converted into the restaurant's dining room, with the historic industrial architecture preserved as the backdrop. The walls carry paintings and posters commissioned from local and internationally recognized South Asian artists, creating an environment where the cultural reference point of the name extends beyond the menu and into the room itself.

The Arts District location connects Brick Lane to a neighborhood that has built a reputation over the past decade as one of the most interesting dining corridors in the city, drawing chefs and restaurateurs who want a setting that carries its own identity rather than a generic commercial strip address.

Chef Sanjay Rawat Brings New Delhi Roots and California Ingredients Together

Rawat comes to this project from Kahani, his Indian restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, where he has worked at the intersection of traditional Indian cooking and refined California hospitality. At Brick Lane, that same instinct applies, the kitchen draws on regional Indian recipes and traditional techniques but builds each dish around fresh California produce and locally sourced ingredients.

In a statement released with the opening, Rawat described the restaurant as a lifelong dream, a place where he can share the distinct traditional flavors of India through modern techniques while using the best of what California's farms and producers offer. He traced his cooking philosophy directly back to his grandmother's kitchen in New Delhi, framing the Los Angeles opening as a personal arc from childhood memories to a restaurant of his own in one of America's most competitive culinary cities.

Menu Centers on Regional Indian Dishes Including Applewood Smoked Butter Chicken

The menu at Brick Lane is built around regional Indian dishes approached through a modern lens. The applewood smoked butter chicken has emerged as one of the restaurant's signature preparations, a dish that takes a familiar North Indian classic and introduces a smoking technique that adds depth without departing from the dish's essential character.

The broader menu covers regional Indian cooking traditions, executed with the precision of a fine-dining kitchen and the intention of making those flavors accessible to a Los Angeles audience that spans both longtime Indian food enthusiasts and first-time diners encountering these traditions for the first time. California's supply of fresh produce runs through the kitchen's sourcing approach, reflecting Rawat's stated commitment to making the local ingredient landscape central to the cooking rather than incidental to it.

Co-Founders Shariff and Nayyar Enter Hospitality for the First Time With This Project

Rishma Shariff and Sachin Nayyar, who partnered with Rawat to open Brick Lane, are first-time restaurateurs. The three came together around a shared interest in bringing the cultural spirit of East London's Brick Lane corridor to Los Angeles, a city with a growing South Asian population and a dining scene that has seen increasing interest in regional Indian cuisine over the past several years.

The choice of the Arts District as a location reflects an understanding of where that audience is building. The neighborhood attracts a mix of creative industry workers, young professionals, design and art community members and destination diners from across the city, a demographic that aligns naturally with a restaurant positioning itself at the intersection of culinary tradition and contemporary presentation.

East London's Brick Lane Provides the Cultural Blueprint for the LA Restaurant

The original Brick Lane in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets has served as a hub for South Asian communities in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, when Bangladeshi and Indian immigrants established a cluster of curry houses that grew into one of the city's most visited dining corridors. Over the following decades, the street evolved to incorporate street art, vintage shops, independent galleries and a market culture that made it a destination for the city's creative community alongside its longstanding food identity.

That layered cultural identity, food, art, community and independent spirit together in the same corridor, is what Rawat, Shariff and Nayyar have drawn on for the Los Angeles restaurant. The 1920s warehouse setting, the South Asian artwork on the walls and the regionally rooted menu all point toward the same reference point: a place where cultural heritage and contemporary dining occupy the same space without contradiction.

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