A letter from Arts District
Bestia
The husband-and-wife Italian that made the Arts District worth crossing town for
We met in a kitchen
Bestia begins in 2005, in someone else's restaurant. Ori was cooking under Jason Travi at Gino Angelini's La Terza. Genevieve was hostessing while playing French horn.
Neither of us had ever opened a restaurant. Genevieve had only started baking two months before the doors opened at Bestia — Nancy Silverton had tasted her shortbread and told her, in that Nancy way, that she was going to be our pastry chef.
Genevieve had only started baking two months before the doors opened.
From nothing to Italian, in every region at once
We deliberately didn't tie Bestia to a single Italian region. Italy is bigger than that. So the menu spans salumi we cure ourselves, blistered wood-oven pizzas, and hand-cut pastas that draw from Rome, from Emilia-Romagna, from Sicily. And Genevieve's dessert menu — the bone-marrow chocolate chip, the seasonal panna cotta — is treated as its own kitchen, not an afterthought.
Twelve years in, the discipline hasn't slipped.
The Arts District as it was
When we signed the lease in 2012, this block was warehouses and studios. There was no reason to come here for dinner. There was barely a reason to come here at all.
It's easy to forget now, walking past Bavel (that's us too, next door), Manuela, Damian — but for a long time we were the reason. The culture changed here. And a lot of it started on 7th Place.
With gratitude,
Ori Menashe & Genevieve Gergis
Chef-Owners, Bestia
Order this
The dishes that made Bestia
Cavatelli alla Norcina
Ricotta cavatelli with house pork sausage, thyme, shaved black truffle. Bestia's most-ordered pasta.
Squid ink chitarra with lobster
Jet-black hand-cut noodles with lobster and Calabrian chile. On the menu since day one.
The margherita pizza
Blistered, faintly smoky from the wood oven — an entry point to Ori's fermented dough program.
Good to know
Bestia, answered
How do you get a reservation at Bestia?
Reservations open exactly 30 days in advance at 10am Pacific on Resy — set an alarm. If you strike out, walk-in seats at the bar and communal counter open around 5pm.
What is Bestia's healthcare surcharge?
A 4% healthcare charge is added to each check to fund staff benefits. Bestia will remove it on request, but the program has been core to how Ori and Genevieve run the restaurant since well before it was industry standard.
Who owns Bestia?
Chef Ori Menashe and pastry chef Genevieve Gergis, husband and wife. They met at La Terza in 2005 and opened Bestia together in 2012. Bavel — next door on 7th Place — is theirs too.