Welcome to MERiNE
There is a particular quality to moments and evenings on the California Coast.
The hour when the light softens and the air changes and you suddenly become aware of how close the ocean is, even when you can't see it. It is the feeling of being near something larger than the room you are sitting in.
That feeling is where MERiNE begins.
MERiNE
(pronounced muh-REEN),
A modern California seafood restaurant at Hilton Los Angeles / Universal City.
The name is an abstracted nod to marine and mer, the French word for (sea) — less a literal translation than a feeling carried into a word. A name that reads like something you have known before, even if you haven't.
But the restaurant did not arrive from nowhere. It grew out of something that was already here — a space with decades of its own history, a kitchen that has been feeding guests and locals and families for years, and an architectural setting designed by a firm with roots tracing back to William Pereira, the mid-century architect whose work helped define the relationship between California buildings and the coast they sit near.
MERiNE borrows from that instinct. Not as a theme, not as a recreation, but as a question worth continuing to ask: what happens when a space is shaped around where it actually is?
This is the first entry in The MERiNE Journal — a place where MERiNE becomes more than a restaurant, but a way to experience and celebrate our culture.
We will share what we are building, what inspires the food and the experience, the people, and what it means to create a restaurant that is still, intentionally, becoming.
For decades, Café Sierra has been part of the story of this hotel —
A familiar gathering place for celebrations, family meals, travelers passing through, and the community that surrounds us. People have histories here. Birthdays. Anniversaries. The Saturday night seafood buffet that became a tradition before anyone planned it that way.
MERiNE does not erase that history. It builds from it.
The transition from Café Sierra to MERiNE is less about replacing one restaurant with another.
It’s more about allowing a space to grow into its next chapter — something more intentional, more connected to California, and more rooted in the idea that a hotel restaurant can be a destination in its own right.
At MERiNE, that evolution is grounded in the coast: seafood and seasonal ingredients, shared plates designed for the center of the table, warm hospitality, and a dining experience that feels elevated without ever becoming stiff.
And the transformation is not happening all at once. We didn't want it to.
The restaurant will continue to evolve thoughtfully over time — through the menu, the environment, the details, and the experiences we build around the table. Each change is part of creating something more cohesive and more distinctly MERiNE. A new dish that better reflects the season. A shift in how a table is set. A piece of the design that simply falls into place.
We are not interested in a dramatic unveiling. We are interested in getting it right, and that takes the kind of time that most restaurants don't give themselves permission to take.
Café Sierra is part of where we came from.
MERiNE is where the story goes next.
What does a “Modern California Seafood Concept” mean?
The honest answer is that California food has never belonged to one tradition. It is shaped by the ocean, by history, by migration, by seasonality, and by the many cultures that have influenced how people eat and cook across this state. That is what gives a restaurant like MERiNE permission to approach seafood with a wider point of view than the term usually suggests.
The menu begins with the coast — seafood, shellfish, the things the Pacific provides — but the experience is equally shaped by what grows beyond the shoreline: citrus, herbs, produce, fire and smoke and char, wine from regions an hour or two up the coast, cocktails built around botanicals that only grow in this part of the world.
On any given evening, that might mean a beautifully prepared whole fish, oysters with sparkling wine, or a dish shaped by the flavors and techniques found throughout California's diverse coastal communities. The weekend all-you-can-eat seafood experience that guests have known for years is staying — because some traditions earn their place at the table.
But MERiNE is not trying to recreate the traditional seafood restaurant. There is no rule that says coastal dining has to feel nautical, or formal, or predictable. But it does need to be fresh.
MERiNE is about warmth. Shared plates arriving at the center of the table. Long evenings. A cocktail before dinner that you didn't plan on ordering. A bottle of wine that stays a little longer than expected. The kind of conversation that doesn't feel rushed because the room isn't asking you to leave.
It is seafood through a distinctly California lens — relaxed but considered, familiar but curious, always connected to where we are.
That is the kind of restaurant MERiNE is becoming. And if the word becoming sounds unusual for an opening statement, that is the point. We would rather build something worth returning to than announce something finished before the story has had room to breathe.
Welcome to MERiNE. We're glad you're here.