The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has announced details of Fanny’s, the museum’s restaurant and café, which will debut when the much anticipated museum opens to the public on September 30 of this year. 

According to a press release, restaurateurs Bill Chait and Carl Schuster have partnered with museum donor Wendy Stark, who named the restaurant named after her grandmother Fanny Brice, the flamboyant film star portrayed by Barbra Streisand in her Oscar®-winning performance in Funny Girl (1968).

The two-story space in the Saban Building is designed by Commune Design and Wolfgang Puck Catering will oversee catering services at the museum. The late architect Osvaldo Maiozzi conceptualized the 10,000-square-foot space, with interior design by L.A.-based Commune Design in the refurbished 1939 Streamline Moderne architecture, formerly the historic May Company department store on the Miracle Mile which was born around the same time Brice was a shooting star.

The dining area will be a mix of small group and communal tables, with a prepared foods market that will lead into the main dining room with an art deco-style bar and lounge area featuring curved booths. 

The space features the work of local artists with custom light fixtures by Atelier de Troupe and Pojagi-inspired sheer curtain panels by textile artist Adam Pogue. Los Angeles artist and illustrator Konstantin Kakanias has been commissioned to create a wraparound mural for the main dining room celebrating film and music legends from classical Hollywood to the present day.

Fanny’s will seat 250 guests and will be open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with brunch on the weekends. The private events facility and terrace seats 600 guests on the top floor of the museum.

 

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