"I love the idea of someone going and having a cocktail and some oysters over there and then coming next door for their reservation or vice versa," restaurateur Jonah Freedman told Eater LA in August. He was describing Henri's, the raw bar he is building in the former private dining room at Mistral.

Freedman's plan matches what has already happened farther west on Ventura Boulevard. On October 22, the team behind Daisy Margarita Bar opened Gilbert Pérez Bar upstairs from Daisy. You get there through a thick curtain at the back of the downstairs room. This fall, two established Sherman Oaks restaurants are growing by adding a second room behind or beside the first. Both new rooms are small and built for a set length of visit, and you reach each one through the room you already know.

The Curtain at the Back of Daisy

Daisy Margarita Bar opened on April 17, 2025, at 14633 Ventura Boulevard, in the space that was once the Sherman bar. Eater LA described it as a Norteño cantina–inspired restaurant and cocktail bar from bartender Max Reis and his partner Matt Egan, with chef Alan Sanz in the kitchen. According to Eater LA's October report, the upstairs room has been in the works since Daisy opened.

Gilbert Pérez Bar works differently from the cantina below it. It has 24 seats and no standing room. Every table is booked for 90 minutes, and reservations are required. The bar pours more than 70 rums from small-batch producers across Mexico. Its name comes from a legend Egan found about Gil Pérez, a soldier said to have been carried from the Philippines to Mexico City by magic in the 1500s. Phones are not allowed, and Reis told Eater LA that staff are trained to spot smart glasses too.

The room is built around the length of the seating, and a reservation runs in this order:

1. A guest is walked through the curtain at the rear of Daisy and climbs the stairs. Eater LA's account has the bar's namesake ghost waiting along the way.
2. The host hands over a menu printed with a map of Mexico, marking points in the Gil Pérez story, and seven cocktails, not all of them made with rum.
3. Roughly every 45 minutes, the lighting changes and a spiced mix of nuts and popcorn arrives at the table. Three coordinated screens move to the next "portal," and a digital split-flap board above the bar, styled after an old train-station display, announces the new destination.
4. A server then brings a postcard menu of drinks built around the flavors and spirits of that new location.

Reis told Eater LA that 90 minutes is enough for two or three portals. He also called it a responsible amount of time for drinks this strong, since some of the rums are bottled at more than 54 percent alcohol. The opening cocktails include the Liquid Limpia, made with hoja santa, a single-barrel Oaxacan rum, sugar cane, lime and a Jalisco aperitif. There is also a Paloma Fizz finished with an in-house soda that Eater LA said tastes like Squirt. Guests can order a daiquiri, ti' punch, mojito, Old Fashioned or Negroni with any Mexican rum on the shelf.

The room's makers include several names from well outside the Valley. The music comes from Pasaporte Records, a Highland Park record shop. Lighting is by Spike Kienholz of Spike Design, who has toured with Phoebe Bridgers and LCD Soundsystem. Adean Studios designed the space, as it did Daisy. Reis has said the room's story will keep changing and that he wants each visit to surprise people. That fits with having to leave after 90 minutes.

Gilbert Pérez is open Thursdays from 6 to 11 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 6 p.m. to midnight, with tables booked through Resy. Daisy, downstairs, keeps its own hours.

Mistral Kept Its Old Room on Purpose

At 13422 Ventura Boulevard, the second room is being added to a much older first one. Henri Abergel opened Mistral in 1988 and ran it until he retired in 2025. Freedman, who also owns Greekman's in Silver Lake, took it over in late 2025 with partner and culinary director Josh Migdal. They kept the menu unchanged for a stretch, then closed briefly to plan what came next. The restaurant reopened on Monday, August 10, 2026.

The renovation was planned around keeping the old room recognizable. Mistral now has custom red leather booths, artwork by the French American painter Guy Buffet, glass chandeliers and wood paneling. Freedman told Eater LA it "feels both totally preserved and totally fresh," and called the project "an homage to the original Mistral rather than just an updated Mistral." Food Journal Magazine reported that the new owners also carried over house accounts for longtime regulars.

The menu still follows the bistro tradition, with a lighter touch. There are chevre and honey cigars, a Mistral Caesar topped with baguette chips, French onion soup under Comté grilled cheese, and mussels in a broth of sungold tomatoes and gewürztraminer. Steak frites come four ways: an 8-ounce hanger, an 8-ounce prime center-cut filet, a 14-ounce New York strip, and a 24-ounce côte de boeuf for two. Freedman told Eater LA that many dishes are finished with vinegars and citrus zest to add acid and freshness to food that is traditionally sauce-heavy. Sommelier Julia Djaoui oversees the wine list.

Mistral seats guests from 5 p.m. nightly. It also has a night owl menu that needs no reservation, served from 9 to 9:30 p.m. on weekdays and from 9:30 to 10 p.m. on weekends. The restaurant's website lists a reservations email, [email protected].

Henri's Turns the Private Dining Room Into a Second Door

Henri's carries the founder's name. Eater LA describes the room it will occupy, Mistral's former private dining room, as "jewel-box-sized." The plan calls for oysters, cocktails, and both raw and cooked seafood. The Los Angeles Times also listed it in September as a tandem raw bar next door to Mistral.

Henri's is the Mistral side of the same idea that produced Gilbert Pérez. In both cases, a team that already had a dining room with regulars chose to build a small room alongside it instead of expanding the main one. Freedman's own description treats the two rooms as one evening. You have a drink and oysters in one room, then sit down for dinner in the other, in either order. Upstairs at Daisy works the same way. Anyone arriving for a 90-minute seating walks through the cantina first.

What a Two-Room Address Changes About a Night on Ventura

These second rooms are built so they can't simply absorb a walk-in crowd. Gilbert Pérez has 24 seats, a fixed 90-minute seating and no standing room. Henri's is going into what used to be a private dining room. The larger rooms in front of them handle the volume, and the small rooms are where the planned part of the evening happens.

Planning a night around these addresses comes down to a few practical points:

• Booking order. Gilbert Pérez requires a reservation and runs three nights a week. It is the scarcer of the two seats at 14633 Ventura, so it makes sense to book it first and plan dinner downstairs at Daisy around it.
• Timing at Mistral. The night owl window, from 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9:30 p.m. on weekends, is the one way into Mistral without a booking.
• Phones. The no-phones rule upstairs from Daisy covers smart glasses too, so the upstairs portion of the evening goes unrecorded.
• Distance. The two addresses sit on the same boulevard, at 13422 and 14633 Ventura, so a Mistral dinner and a later Gilbert Pérez seating can fit into one Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.

Smaller openings are also planned on the boulevard. What Now Los Angeles reported plans for Cornichon, a French sandwich café at 13702 W. Ventura Boulevard, just west of Mistral. At Mistral and Daisy, the newest additions are going into rooms that were already open: a bistro from 1988 that its new owners chose to preserve, and a cantina that opened in April 2025.

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