EAT. PLAY. LIVE. Three under-the-radar projects are in the vanguard of the street-level design revolution that's disrupting Los Angeles' hospitality sector. BY ORIANA LERNER ELIZ ABETH DANIEL S PHOTOGR APHY THE LA DEVELOPMENT boom has already yielded a bumper crop of marquee openings. Even casual travelers can tick off the hot hotel openings: Freehand Los Angeles, InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, NoMad Los Angeles and the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. But, that's just the view from the Hollywood sign. The city's indie hits take conceptual risks and embrace the rough side of LA, whether that's in its geography or in its brutally competitive after-hours scene where superstar owners and operators have seen their A-list clubs close in a matter of months. Meet the innovators behind some of the city's latest iconoclastic hotspots: Poppy, a surrealist fantasy nightclub hybrid that's housed in the former STK Restaurant in West Hollywood; Dialogue, a world-class, 21-course tasting menu restaurant hidden behind the scratched doors of a Santa Monica food court; and Hotel: Kim Sing, a three-bedroom hotel in a historic theater in the city's still-gentrifying Chinatown. Read on to find out how designers are radically rethinking layouts, materiality and other elements to make those risks pay off. MARCH 2018 boutiquedesign.com 35http://www.boutiquedesign.com