Bar Fortuna opens on Santa Monica's Main Street

Bar Fortuna has opened on Santa Monica's Main Street, a casual Italian wine bar from chef Brian Bornemann, one block from his restaurant Crudo e Nudo.

The restaurant has taken over 2917 Main St, the space left behind by Vamos Vamos, with an opening expected by the end of October after a soft start earlier in the month. Bornemann built the concept around pasta techniques he picked up in Italy, applied to an all-day, beach-adjacent format.

A one-block second act

A wine bar and a trattoria, one block from where the same chef already made his name.

Crudo e Nudo, Bornemann's original restaurant, built its name on raw fish and produce-driven plates. Bar Fortuna moves in a different direction: a wine bar and trattoria with an espresso window for the morning crowd and a dining room built for lingering over a bottle.

The short walk between the two restaurants lets Bornemann run a second concept without leaving his own stretch of Main Street, a pattern increasingly common among Los Angeles chefs opening second sites rather than relocating.

Rotating pastas and a lobster on the grill

The menu centres on handmade pasta that changes with the season, including a spaghetti with clams and a pesto fusilli, alongside a grilled spiny lobster and a fennel salad finished with chili crisp. Five negroni variations anchor the cocktail list, next to a wine-heavy by-the-glass programme.

Main Street has seen a wave of openings this year as older tenants cycle out and new operators move in behind them, from bars to bakeries, each betting on foot traffic that holds up once the beach crowds thin out for winter.

Bar Fortuna arrives as California's vineyards keep losing ground, a reminder that the wine lists filling Los Angeles's new restaurants increasingly lean on fewer, pricier domestic bottles. Whether Fortuna's own list leans local or imported was not yet settled at opening; the restaurant had also not finalised its hours.

Local coverage flagged the opening days before anyone had eaten there, noting only that the restaurant existed and what was on the menu. That gap between announcement and verdict is typical of how fast Main Street's newest wave of openings has moved this autumn.