For most of the past six years, the stretch of North Cañon Drive above Wilshire Boulevard was closed to traffic — barricaded behind sound walls, staging yards, and construction equipment tied to Metro's D Line subway extension. Beverly Hills residents learned to route around it. The restaurants on that block learned to survive without the foot traffic. And then, on the morning of March 14, 2026, the street reopened.
What it reopened to is not what it left behind. The barricades came down the same winter that a Christmas morning fire gutted a 31-year Beverly Hills institution three blocks north, permanently closed a 48-year salon next door, and set in motion a series of new arrivals that, taken together, suggest the dining center of Cañon Drive has quietly migrated south — not as a result of any single event, but because of all of them landing at once.
What the Fire Revealed
Shortly after midnight on Christmas morning 2025, an oily rag left in the kitchen prep area at Porta Via spontaneously combusted. According to Rappaport Consulting, retained by the Beverly Hills Fire Department, the fire was unintentional. It destroyed the restaurant completely — blowing a hole through the roof, collapsing structural elements, ending 31 years of service at 424 N. Cañon Drive.
The collateral damage extended beyond the kitchen. Umberto Beverly Hills, the salon that had occupied the neighboring space for 48 years, announced on January 3 that it would close permanently due to smoke damage. Tesoro, a gift boutique whose owner described the shop as her late mother's legacy, was gutted. The Beverly Press reported that the fire devastated what had been a close-knit community on the upper end of North Cañon Drive.
The block at 424 is now quiet in a way it hasn't been since before Peter Garland opened his breakfast-and-lunch café there in 1994.
Garland is not rebuilding at that address. This spring, he announced that Porta Via Beverly Hills will reopen at 184 N. Cañon Drive in summer 2026 — three blocks south, in the 5,300-square-foot space that once housed Nusr-Et. The new location seats 165 and includes a redesigned outdoor patio. His explanation for the move is the clearest articulation of what's actually happening on this street:
"With the park and newly opened cul-de-sac nearby, Spago next door, the Maybourne Hotel across the street, and restaurants like Dante, Novikov, and Mastro's all within close reach, the center of gravity has shifted in this direction."
That quote is doing more work than it appears to. Garland is not describing a consolation relocation. He is saying that the place his restaurant was for three decades is no longer where the energy is — and that the place it's going is where Beverly Hills dining is organizing itself now.
What Opened Into That Shift
The southern end of Cañon Drive already had Spago. It now has company.
Azur Beverly Hills opened March 28, 2026 at 453 N. Cañon Drive, in the former Tatel space. The concept is French-Mediterranean — wood-fired cooking, a DJ booth, the aesthetic vocabulary of a Côte d'Azur beach club. It is the kind of room that requires a dinner reservation on a Wednesday.
At 267 N. Cañon Drive, in the address that once belonged to The Palm, Bad Roman is listed as coming soon as of May 2026. The New York original, from Quality Branded (the team behind Don Angie and Zou Zou's), is a maximalist Italian concept — neon, animal statues, red-sauce dishes served in a room designed to be seen in. It will be the brand's first location outside New York.
Here is what the southern stretch of Cañon Drive looks like right now, and what is still arriving:
| Restaurant | Address | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Spago | 176 N. Canon Dr | Open |
| Azur Beverly Hills | 453 N. Canon Dr | Open (March 2026) |
| Bad Roman | 267 N. Canon Dr | Coming soon |
| Porta Via Beverly Hills | 184 N. Canon Dr | Summer 2026 |
That is four restaurants on one corridor, three of them new or returning, in a span of roughly six months. The concentration is not accidental. Garland named Spago and the Maybourne Hotel as the gravitational anchors when he chose his new address. The operators behind Azur made the same calculation when they chose the Tatel space over other available locations in the city.
The Broader Wave Behind It
Cañon Drive's transformation is the most concentrated story, but it sits inside a larger Beverly Hills opening cycle that gathered speed in late 2025 and has continued through this spring.
Baldi opened February 18, 2026 inside the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills — a Tuscan steakhouse from chef Edoardo "Edo" Baldi, whose family also operates Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica and e.Baldi, which marks 20 years in Beverly Hills this year. The 180-seat room is designed around an olive-wood open-flame grill and a terracotta-toned dining room evoking the Chianti countryside.
Marea Beverly Hills is the first West Coast outpost of the acclaimed New York seafood restaurant. The 88 Club, from Top Chef winner Mei Lin, brings a supper-club format to the city. All'Antico Vinaio, the Florence-based sandwich shop with lines around the block in Tuscany, opened its first U.S. location here.
What binds these openings is a pattern worth naming: chef-driven or first-in-market concepts choosing Beverly Hills specifically, many of them for their West Coast or U.S. debut. That is different from the Beverly Hills of five years ago, when the luxury dining story was dominated by hotel restaurants and established brands extending their footprints. The new arrivals are originals choosing this city as the place to prove themselves at scale.
What's Still Coming
Two openings on the near horizon are worth tracking.
Sant Ambroeus is coming to 301 N. Beverly Drive — the nearly 90-year-old Milanese café and gelateria with outposts in New York and the Hamptons. The Beverly Hills location will be its Los Angeles debut.
Sushi Nakazawa, the high-end omakase concept helmed by a chef trained under Jiro Ono of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is also targeting a Beverly Hills opening later this year.
Neither has announced an exact date. Both are worth a reservation attempt the week they open.
The Street Itself
One more thing worth noting for residents who have been routing around this area for years: Cañon Drive above Wilshire is fully restored and open to traffic as of mid-March. The sound wall that defined the construction zone for six years came down on January 14, 2026, and street paving, curbs, and sidewalks have been restored. Beverly Canon Gardens — the small park that sits at the heart of the southern corridor Garland described — is accessible again without construction detours.
The Metro D Line Section 1 opened May 8, bringing the Wilshire/La Cienega station online as its current western terminus. Section 2, which will add a Beverly Drive station directly serving the Golden Triangle, is targeted for spring 2027.
The street closed during one version of Beverly Hills. It reopened during another.
If you own a home in Beverly Hills and are thinking about what this kind of neighborhood momentum means for your property, Greenberg and Weinstock would be glad to talk through it with you — privately, at your pace. Schedule a consultation at your convenience.
