Interior Design, Restaurant InteriorsFlorence LDecember 23, 2025VACAInterior Design, Restaurant Design, Los Angeles

VACA LOS ANGELES || Studio UNLTD Designs a Sculptural Spanish Restaurant Defined by Curves, Craft, and Atmosphere

Interior Design, Restaurant InteriorsFlorence LDecember 23, 2025VACAInterior Design, Restaurant Design, Los Angeles

Downtown Los Angeles rarely slows down, but inside Vaca, the pace softens almost immediately.

The restaurant’s new home inside the Beaudry Building replaces the city’s vertical urgency with a spatial language that feels grounded, enveloping, and deliberately human in scale. Designed by Studio UNLTD, the project reads first and foremost as an interior architecture exercise, one where curves, material transitions, and light guide the experience as much as the food itself.

*Sculptural ceiling planes and warm soffit lighting guide the main dining room, creating a continuous visual dialogue with the custom banquettes below.*

Rather than treating the restaurant as a backdrop for dining, Studio UNLTD approached Vaca as a continuous spatial composition. The design responds to the constraints of a dense downtown footprint and limited ceiling height not with visual compression, but with sculptural intention. Stepped ceiling planes and broad, sweeping curves echo the geometry of the custom banquettes below, creating a rhythmic relationship between overhead surfaces and the dining floor. The result is a sense of movement that feels fluid and cohesive rather than segmented.

*Curved forms and layered finishes soften the dining experience, replacing downtown rigidity with spatial flow and material warmth.*

Materiality plays a central role in shaping this atmosphere. Acoustic plaster in a warm, rust-toned hue wraps the ceiling, softening sound while lending visual warmth. Walls are layered with finishes such as dusty canela lime wash, Concretta cement, and handmade Mexican Cotto tile, each selected for texture rather than ornament. Linear lighting grazes these surfaces, emphasizing depth and tactility while guiding sightlines through the space. Nothing feels overly polished. Instead, the materials absorb light, creating a calm counterbalance to the energy of the open kitchen.

*A dedicated jamón counter elevates Spanish culinary tradition into a focal design element.*

That kitchen sits at the heart of the restaurant, intentionally integrated into the dining room. Dark gray quartz pass counters and saffron-tiled walls extend the warmth of the public space into the back of house, blurring the boundary between preparation and performance. Cast-iron paella pans line the hood, doubling as functional tools and visual markers of culinary identity. Nearby, a dedicated jamón counter elevates the cured ham from ingredient to centrepiece, reinforcing the idea that food culture and spatial design are inseparable.

Custom furniture further anchors the interior’s character. Tables and banquettes combine burl inlay, blackened steel, indigo-stained wood veneer, and gray stone, while leather seating introduces a tactile softness. Bold colour accents and playful patterns reference Spanish vibrancy without tipping into pastiche. Each element feels considered, but never precious, allowing the space to remain lively and adaptable.

*The bar’s Stalatiti Bronze marble waterfall mirrors the ceiling geometry, anchoring the space as both sculptural feature and social hub.*

The bar acts as both a visual anchor and a sculptural statement. Its Stalatiti Bronze marble waterfall curves in sync with the ceiling above, drawing the eye along the length of the room toward the wine display beyond. Behind the bar, mirrored surfaces amplify light and movement, while hand-glazed turquoise tiles and deep burgundy dividers introduce contrast and cadence. Slender pendants cast a warm glow that reinforces the bar’s role as a social focal point rather than a visual divider.

The restaurant feels immersive without being theatrical, intimate without being enclosed. In a downtown context defined by scale and speed, the interior offers something increasingly rare: a space that encourages guests to settle in, engage, and stay awhile.