Chef Timothy Hollingsworth. It is designed to be a social restaurant with an open kitchen merging indoor and outdoor spaces. The restaurant’s name, Otium, has its roots in Latin, a word that is meant to emphasize a place where time can be spent on leisurely social activities. Adjacent to one of Los Angeles’ most important cultural corridors — Grand Avenue — and next to its newest,

most vibrant addition, the contemporary art museum, The Broad, Otium strips away the rigid formalities of dining while focusing on the quality of food, warm service, and relaxed casual ambience, paralleling the true essence of its name. The restaurant draws inspiration from the 100-year-old olive trees planted in The Broad’s adjacent Plaza by utilizing rustic cooking with wood fire and sustainable ingredients grown in the garden of the restaurant’s mezzanine.

While working at The French Laundry under Chef Thomas Keller in 2008, Hollingsworth competed in the Bocuse d’Or USA, where he was awarded the opportunity to represent the United States at the Bocuse d’Or World Cuisine Contest—the biennial global cooking competition first envisioned in 1987 by revered French chef Paul Bocuse. Hollingsworth subsequently completed a rigorous training process, during which he worked with some of the industry’s most influential figures. In early 2009, Hollingsworth traveled to Lyon, France to compete in the prestigious event, where he placed sixth out of 24 prominent chef teams from around the world.

Shortly after leaving his post at The French Laundry in 2013 and traveling to stage under acclaimed European Chefs including Alain Ducasse and Gordon Ramsay, Chef Hollingsworth moved to Los Angeles to begin new ventures. In his current role and first solo project at Otium, he looks to be a mentor to the next generation of aspiring chefs. Hollingsworth has been awarded Rising Star Chef Award from The San Francisco Chronicle as well as the Rising Star Chef of the Year Award presented by the James Beard Foundation.

To complement the approachable elegance of Hollingsworth’s cuisine, the interior design of Otium can be characterized as sophisticated rusticity. A strong but limited palette of natural materials both inside and outside – steel, glass, wood, copper, stone and ceramics – were chosen to create perfectly imperfect spaces that are both raw and refined.

The design is an artful mix of old and new, honest and refined, that echoes the menu’s offerings and a cocktail program. Like downtown Los Angeles itself, Otium has roots in the past and aspirations for the future.