Sous Sous in Silver Lake Blends French and Southern Cooking in a Vibey Chapel Dining Room

Sous Sous in Silver Lake Blends French and Southern Cooking in a Vibey Chapel Dining Room

The De La Nonna team’s new hot spot whips up Espelette-spiced oysters and a coconut-infused Sazerac inside a converted 1931 church.

It took some time to get here. Casetta Hotels spent six years renovating the building on the corner of Lucile Avenue and Griffith Park Boulevard, born as Bethany Presbyterian Church in 1931. When De La Nonna chef Patrick Costa and operations and beverage director Lee Zaremba were brought on, the duo and Casetta team worked to prioritize embracing the surrounding community. Neighborhood touches placed throughout the building include local artists adorning the walls and a partnership with Los Feliz’s nearby Skylight Books. Sous Sous’s kitchen sources using its longtime relationships with local food vendors and farmers and herbs grown on Hotel Lucile’s rooftop garden.

Costa’s oysters have an Espelette pepper–seasoned rim on the shell along with a seasonal mignonette, both honoring the French Basque region. Bluefin tuna crudo, prawns doused with Espelette-herb butter, roasted salmon, and a bouillabaisse for two also made the menu, giving a strong California-French through line that seems to be dominating some of the hottest new restaurants in Los Angeles right now. Crisp, pillowy hush puppies get served with honey butter and a serrano chile. The eight-ounce Le Burg offers a classic bistro burger interpretation with caramelized onions, cheddar, and Dijonnaise on a toasted potato bun.

Costa will transform local farmers market hauls into roasted carrots with a pomegranate glaze, sunchoke risotto, a Mediterranean-influenced chopped salad, plus a zucchini carpaccio with burrata, pistou, and anchovy. For mains, the team added a classic roasted and grilled chicken with a three-day-reduced chicken jus, drenched with plenty of lemon to further draw out the dish’s flavors. The menu will mostly remain the same throughout the year with light seasonal touches to update its anchors over time. “The menu has refreshing elements to it,” says Costa. “Having that light spirit with lemon, herbs, olive oil really helps in a coastal region.”

Sous Sous’s bar, meanwhile, seems poised to make an ideal Silver Lake hangout. The bar itself resembles a church organ with a high, centered arch, a centerpiece stage for Zaremba’s cocktails. He dives deep into the Southern and French theme with a fried green tomato tequila drink that uses tomatoes, blanco tequila, and fresh lime with an Old Bay rim. To nod to New Orleans, the espresso martini gets made with mezcal and chicory; he takes rye and infuses it with toasted coconut for a fresh riff on the iconic Sazerac. Zaremba also curated an extensive and mostly French wine list that he says will evolve but stay filled with small producers.

Casetta brought on Venice’s Electric Bowery to design the room. Sous Sous sits in the property’s former chapel, so the team took care to restore the original stained-glass windows and arches, a collection of antiques that reflect Silver Lake, and jeweled tones throughout, before adding custom banquettes and an upstairs lounge overlooking the restaurant. It all nests within the Hotel Lucile, which, in true boutique hotel style, has an intimate 25 rooms with a rooftop deck that’s only available to guests.

This isn’t the first time Casetta has partnered with Zaremba and Costa. Their first partnership began in 2025 for the second De La Nonna location inside the refurbished Hotel Marina Riviera in Big Bear, California.

The duo recently closed De La Nonna’s adjacent bar, Let’s Go Disco; life changes have made them more focused on projects like Sous Sous and less around nightlife. It’s also an opportunity to showcase the team’s talents, which go beyond De La Nonna’s pizza patio excellence by tapping into their fine dining backgrounds. “We get to expand people’s expectations of us,” says Zaremba. “This is passion and joy, not a bad job to have.”

Sous Sous is open Sunday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday until 10 p.m. at 1629 Griffith Park Boulevard, Silver Lake, CA, 90026. Tables are bookable through Resy.