Copyright The Hollywood Reporter
When McG was on set directing his 2006 football drama We Are Marshall, starring Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox and Anthony Mackie, an Italian Steadicam operator would routinely lean on a popular phrase from his home country and shout it out to amp up the crew’s energy in between takes. “He would always say ‘spacca tutto,’ meaning break a leg, go out there, kick ass, do your thing,” the veteran filmmaker and entrepreneur recalled to The Hollywood Reporter. “It would fire everybody up to go play football and do our thing. We found it very exciting.” McG recounted the experience seated next to Rick Caruso and famed chef and restaurateur Nancy Silverton inside a restaurant space at Caruso’s tony Palisades Village in Pacific Palisades. It was pretty clear that they were fired about and excited about the occasion for the Tuesday afternoon press briefing: Come next year, the trio will open doors on a new Italian American steakhouse concept that borrows its name from that popular phrase, Spacca Tutto, in the anchor spot formerly occupied by The Draycott. While it’s not set to seat any diners or plate any steaks until the official opening in August 2026, the dining partners revealed Tuesday a first look at the renderings along with conceptual and design details. The partners gathered for an early launch announcement, as it is part of the revitalization plans for Caruso’s Palisades Village as Pacific Palisades continues to rebuild from January’s catastrophic wildfires. Spacca Tutto’s reveal follows Caruso’s May announcement that he recruited retail maven Elyse Walker to anchor the flagship space on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Swarthmore Avenue. With inspiration from Silverton’s Chi Spacca on Melrose Avenue, the Spacca Tutto menu will feature a steak lineup with American classics and lighter fare like salads, seafood and seasonal vegetable dishes for lunch, dinner or drinks. Plans call for the wine program to feature nearly 250 Italian and domestic labels paired with a “fast craft” cocktail menu. Spacca Tutto is being fashioned by interior design firm AvroKO. Silverton is partnering with River Jetty Restaurant Group, founded by Joseph “McG” Nichol and Jordan Otterbein in Newport Beach in 2007. RJRG’s portfolio includes A Restaurant and A Market in Newport Beach, CdM in Corona del Mar, A Crystal Cove in Newport Beach and A PCH in Long Beach. Who called who first? CARUSO The backstory is that for at least the last 20 years, I have been trying to do something with Nancy because I’m a big fan. We’ve had a lot of conversations over the years but I cold-called her a few months ago and said, “I’ve got a great idea about doing something together in the Palisades. Just give it some thought.” She said, “You know what? That sounds interesting.” I told her that together we could be part of rebuilding a city. The same with McG, I’ve been wanting to work with him and his team for some time. It all came together and we’re super excited about it. Over these past 20 or so years, was there a moment when it came close to working out? CARUSO We’ve had a lot of discussions over the years and we never got real close. She’s very busy and had a lot of stuff going on between the market and other neighborhood businesses. I’ve been doing this for 35, 40 years now and I have this view of my company of focusing on long-term relationships. Sometimes opportunities take a long time and you have to wait for the right one at the right moment. This was the right opportunity at the right moment. SILVERTON It was just tricky when we were talking about it before. Obviously, the opportunity was at The Grove, which was too close in proximity to what I have on the corner of Melrose and Highland. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t cannibalize what I had. I wanted to find a niche that felt right and I would feel comfortable in. What made this call more appealing? SILVERTON The distance was interesting. I live in Hancock Park and I don’t know this community [of Pacific Palisades]. I knew the devastation from afar but the opportunity to help a city that I’m from and to help rebuild this city that I love, made it work. What better way to rebuild a community than with food, right? Food helps the community. A community needs food. That’s why this was so intriguing. MCG Same for us. I’ve been living in Rick’s experiences, which are second to none, for a long time. We’re neighbors in two cities and I’ve been dining at Nancy’s establishments forever. We like to have the finest experiences in regard to food service and vibe. We’re in with two of the premier heavyweights and we’re delighted to be here. McG, were you already in conversations with Rick? MCG Rick and I just got to know each other a little bit from around the way, and I was just thrilled at the opportunity to reinvigorate Palisades. Most of my peers in the filmmaking community live over here, so of course, the idea of having a place here made sense. We want to build a place where when it comes to mind, everyone can say, “Let’s go over to that joint” because it always feels like the right thing. Food is the key to the heart, and if we can supply that excitement and community and be a part of the story, we’re absolutely thrilled. How long did it take to settle on a concept? SILVERTON Aside from wanting an anchor of this property, Rick and I both felt that it’s not a special occasion place. He wants a place here that can host people seven days a week, multiple meals a week. We’re calling it an Italian American steakhouse because everyone can identify with that. I think that’s what’s needed here: Familiarity, comfort food. CARUSO It is filling a niche on the property that we don’t have. Angelini is coming back, Blue Ribbon Sushi is coming back, Hanks is coming back. What we’ve always wanted on this property and what our customers have told us that they want is a great steakhouse. Who better to do it in an Italian vibe? That’s how it all came together. But this is the premier location on the property, the heartbeat of the property. We have a great design that opens the space up to the park, along with a great bar for people to congregate over delicious food. You probably saw from being here before, but this space was always packed and we expect it to bring people back from around the city. I’m very confident about that. Thousands of jobs were lost in this community, from Santa Monica to Malibu, all these restaurant jobs, domestic jobs. So job creation is incredibly important to us because this will create everything from entry-level jobs to management jobs with chefs, bartenders, servers, and more. That is important to give a community life and vibrancy. That’s another reason I’m thrilled about this. MCG I started my career with Charlie’s Angels, a movie made as a love letter to Los Angeles. It was colorful, it was optimistic and it naturally fit who I am as a storyteller. We kept that going with The O.C., which sort of put Orange County on the map to some degree with the surf culture and the community there. This feels like a natural third step in that evolution. You are such a great person to comment on the various states of industries you straddle with your businesses, particularly on the heels of what Rick said about bringing jobs back to the area. A lot of the industries in which you work are facing turmoil and challenges… MCG There’s no doubt about it. It’s sad to see the erosion of aerospace in California. We have Silicon Valley up north and we’ve got to hold onto Hollywood. It’s something that everybody identifies with right now and so what we’re trying to do is lead by example. We have the Henson Studios lot in partnership with John Mayer, and we’re trying to do what Tyler Perry did in Atlanta. We’re trying to bring it back up with deed, not just words. Let’s talk about the name Spacca Tutto. How was the brainstorming session? Was there a debate? CARUSO We had good discussions. SILVERTON I wanted to make the connection to what I have but give it something new since this is going to be a different restaurant. We’re going to borrow some of the dishes from the other two, and because an Italian American steakhouse is closest to what I have at Chi Spacca, we toyed with the idea of calling it that. But I didn’t want people to think they were going to get exactly what they get at Chi Spacca. Plus, this is much larger than Chi Spacca and the menu is going to be much larger. We went back and forth with a couple of different names.
