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Sona restaurant to close in May and reopen in a new location next year, says chef David Myers

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Chef David Myers has announced that Sona, his Michelin one-star restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard, will close in May and reopen in a new location in 2011. Myers said contracts are being finalized for the new Sona space but would not reveal the location or details about the restaurant other than that he is working with designer Adam Tihany.

“Our lease is coming up here this year, and we have an opportunity to re-create, to do something new,” Myers said.
The announcement that Sona, which opened in 2002, is closing and then relocating comes about six months after Myers’ former partners pulled out of the fine-dining business. In September, Myers launched management company David Myers Group with new partners. Myers said the decision to move Sona was not directly related to the management upheaval or to the sour economy. “It was a new opportunity,” he repeated. “Companies evolve, restaurants evolve. Sona has always been about trying new things.”

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Myers also owns Pizzeria Ortica in Costa Mesa and bistro Comme Ca in West Hollywood and plans to open a “high-end pastry shop and Sona-esque restaurant” in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district in September. “This has been in the works for over a year now, and it’s really great timing. I wanted to be able to give 100% of myself” to the new projects in Japan, he said.
But previous plans to expand his empire have been curbed, and Myers admitted that the biggest challenge of 2009 was the economy.

Boule, the groundbreaking patisserie that Myers opened in 2003 with his former wife, Michelle, has closed. (The new Tokyo pastry shop will not be related to Boule. “We’re still working on a name,” he said.) Plans for a Comme Ca Bakery have been scrapped. The La Cienega location that had been tagged for another Ortica (across the street from Sona) has been abandoned. “We’re actively looking and ready to open’ a new Ortica, Myers said. “The more we looked at that location, it was way too small and just didn’t work.”

Meanwhile, during the hiatus between the closing of Sona on La Cienega and the opening of the next iteration of the restaurant, chef de cuisine Kuniko Yagi and pastry chef Ramon Perez will be traveling throughout Asia and Europe to ‘use this time to better their craft’ by working at various restaurants, Myers said. ‘This is an incredible moment to get inspired and to think about what we really want to do for the next version of Sona.’

-- Betty Hallock

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