For years, the routine in Century City looked the same for almost everyone who wasn't working in one of its office towers. You drove in for a matinee at the AMC, spent an hour at Bloomingdale's, maybe grabbed a quick bite, and left. The mall was a destination in the way an airport terminal is a destination: functional, polished, not somewhere you lingered past the thing you came for.
That routine doesn't describe Century City anymore, and the proof isn't just a longer restaurant list. It's in which openings actually happened on schedule this year, which ones didn't, and what a rooftop sports club and a decade-old Thursday market reveal about who this neighborhood is now being built for.
The Openings That Hit Their Date
Start with what's already running. Katsuya's Century City location went through a full redesign last year, reopening with an open-air garden terrace looking out toward Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Hills. The menu kept its familiar anchors, spicy tuna on crispy rice and baked crab hand rolls that regulars from the Brentwood location will recognize, while adding toro tartare and A5 wagyu tataki for the redesigned space. Next door, three-Michelin-starred chef Dani García opened Casa Dani in that same 2025 window, bringing Andalusian-leaning Spanish plates built around Iberico ham croquetas and seafood paellas into a room designed to complement Katsuya rather than compete with it.
David Chang's Momofuku group opened Super Peach on the mall's first level on October 19, 2025, his first new restaurant since Bāng Bar in Las Vegas back in 2021. It serves Korean-inspired fare with a California accent: fried wings, Matsuhisa-style fried shrimp, mushroom noodles, wagyu kimbap, all inside a space done up in cool green tones with a kinetic split-flap board that spells out phrases instead of flight times. Café Knotted, the Korean dessert brand known for its brioche doughnuts and pastel aesthetic, opened around the same stretch.
Then came Very Thai in January 2026, which is a bigger deal than its name suggests. The restaurant is the U.S. flagship for TTFB Co. Ltd., one of Taiwan's largest chain restaurant operators, and Century City is its first location anywhere outside Asia. That's not a local business testing a second location. That's a company with real estate infrastructure across an entire continent choosing this specific mall for its first American bet.
All four of these hit their announced windows. None of them are small operations. Katsuya and Casa Dani share a corporate backer with experience opening restaurants inside retail developments. Momofuku has been doing this since 2018 when it opened Majordomo in Chinatown. Very Thai is backed by a chain operator whose entire business model depends on hitting construction deadlines across dozens of locations. None of that is a coincidence.
Where the Pattern Breaks
Compare that to Rumi's Kitchen, the Atlanta-based Persian chain set to open its first California location on the mall's second floor, in the space that used to hold Pink Taco. The plan included two private dining rooms and a patio facing Santa Monica Boulevard, with chef Ali Mesghali, who grew up in Iran and in Los Angeles, opening in the city where he was raised. The restaurant's own site listed the target as Spring 2026. Spring came and went. As of late July 2026, the most recent public reporting on the project, neither Rumi's Kitchen nor Westfield had posted a revised date, and the space was still under construction.
Birdie G's tells a different story. The restaurant is relocating into the Fairmont, taking over the space currently held by the hotel's Lumière, with plans for an all-day operation, pastries and coffee in the morning, lunch and brunch on the patio, then steaks, fish and pasta at dinner, built around hotel guests and the entertainment-industry crowd the Fairmont already draws. The move is expected to keep signature dishes like the matzo ball soup and rose petal pie. No opening date has been reported, but Birdie G's never staked a public season the way Rumi's Kitchen did, so there's nothing yet to call overdue. One project missed a deadline it set for itself. The other simply hasn't set one.
Here's the timeline side by side:
| Concept | Backing | Promised Timing | Status as of Late July 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Katsuya (redesign) | SBE Hospitality Group | 2025 | Open |
| Casa Dani | Dani García Group | 2025 | Open |
| Super Peach | Momofuku (David Chang) | October 2025 | Open |
| Very Thai | TTFB Co. Ltd. (Taiwan) | January 2026 | Open |
| Rumi's Kitchen | Independent Atlanta chain, first CA location | Spring 2026 | Delayed, no revised date |
| Birdie G's (Fairmont relocation) | Independent | None announced | In progress, no date given |
The pattern is plain once you line it up. The concepts with a corporate parent whose entire job is hitting retail construction deadlines finished on time, every time. The one boutique, chef-driven concept without that same execution machine behind it is the one stuck explaining a season that's already passed. If you're the kind of resident who plans a dinner around an opening date, that's worth knowing before you build a Saturday night around Rumi's Kitchen.
A Rooftop Built for People Who Already Live Nearby
The clearest sign of what Century City is turning into isn't on a plate at all. Padel Up runs two outdoor courts on the rooftop of Westfield Century City, tucked between Nordstrom and the AMC, open daily from early morning into the evening. A padel club doesn't make sense as a one-time attraction. Nobody drives across the Westside for a single match the way they might for a specific restaurant's opening week. A rooftop sports club only works if the people using it are close enough, and interested enough, to come back weekly.
That's a meaningfully different bet than the one Century City was making back when the anchor draws were Din Tai Fung, which opened here in 2018, and Eataly, whose 2017 debut was the only Eataly location in Los Angeles. Those were destinations you'd wait in line for. Padel Up is something closer to a gym membership. It assumes a return visit before you've even walked in the first time.
The Thursday Ritual Nobody Needed to Reinvent
While the second floor works through its construction delays, one part of Century City has been running exactly the same way for years without needing a redesign or a press release. The Century City Certified Farmers Market sets up every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, and it's less a shopping trip than a lunch-break habit for people who work in the surrounding towers. It's walkable from most of the office buildings around it, which means the same crowd that used to grab a quick sandwich and eat at their desk now has a reason to step outside, pick up produce or a warm lunch, and treat a Thursday differently than a Tuesday.
That kind of quiet consistency doesn't generate headlines the way a Michelin-starred chef's opening does, but it's arguably the better evidence for the neighborhood's real shift. New restaurants can be announced and delayed. A quiet Thursday ritual that keeps drawing the same office crowd year after year says something sturdier about who's actually spending time here on an ordinary week.
What This Actually Means If You're Already Here
Put the restaurant timeline, the rooftop courts, and the Thursday market together and a single thread runs through all three. The additions that are working, the ones built to survive past their opening month, share a common trait: they were designed for someone who's already close by and plans to come back, not for someone driving in once for a special occasion. The mall used to be judged by what you could see from the street, its towers and its retail footprint. It's increasingly judged by whether a Tuesday night here looks any different from a Tuesday night anywhere else on the Westside.
For anyone who already calls this stretch of the Westside home, that's the more useful read on Century City in 2026 than another restaurant roundup. Watch which openings come from operators with a real estate track record, expect the independent concepts to slip past their own announced dates, and don't underestimate a Thursday morning market that's been quietly doing its job the whole time.
If watching this neighborhood change ever turns into a real conversation about what your home is worth in it, The Suarez Team knows this stretch of the Westside block by block. Request a free home evaluation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
