Stiletto opens October 21, 2024, inside the restored 1940s administrative building at Santa Monica Airport. Stiletto is a modern steakhouse with live-fire cooking, local farmers market produce, and a 38-seat marble bar. Stiletto in Santa Monica seats 100 in the main dining room, with an outdoor terrace planned for summer 2027.
Why Patrick Powell's Airport Restaurant Matters Now
Stiletto gives Santa Monica a dinner address built around beef, fire, and market vegetables rather than another casual coastal room. Restaurateur Sean Martin is behind the project, and he has already opened Matilda's bakery in the same restored airport building. The site is becoming a food stop with daytime and dinner reasons to go, not a single-purpose restaurant built around the novelty of the address.
The name comes from the Douglas X-3 Stiletto jet housed at the neighboring airport museum, which is a useful signal: this restaurant is leaning into the airport setting rather than trying to disguise it. Stiletto has a stronger sense of place than a hotel steakhouse dinner elsewhere on the Westside. Stiletto is a less proven choice than a legacy steakhouse because it opens with a new team, a new room, and a menu that stretches beyond steakhouse muscle memory.
Sean Martin's Matilda's connection also gives you a practical ordering clue. It is part of the meal. Compared with Matilda's, Stiletto is the full evening play: martinis, Guinness, steak tartare, Rosewood Ranch beef, and dessert. Matilda's is the daytime stop around the Santa Monica airport building, and Stiletto is the dinner reservation.
Patrick Powell's Live-Fire Approach
Chef Patrick Powell is Ireland-born, with a London résumé that includes Allegra, Chiltern Firehouse, and One Club Row. That background is the main reason to book early rather than wait for the restaurant to settle into a neighborhood routine. Powell is applying that experience to live-fire cooking in Los Angeles, where the produce access is different from the UK kitchens he came through.
70 percent of the produce on the menu comes from local markets. Powell says 70 percent of the produce on the menu currently comes from local markets. Bluefin tuna comes with melon, cucumber, and mint. Barbecued leek arrives with crab, lemon, and hazelnut. Grilled hispi cabbage gets Cantabrian chile butter. Those dishes make Stiletto a better fit for a group where one diner wants a bone-in rib-eye and another wants vegetables and seafood treated with the same attention.
it s something that s got a lot of finesse to it but then it also kind of tastes like the nacho cheese sauce you get at the cinema on your doritos or nachos or whatever he says i just think it s1
Patrick Powell, Chef
Stiletto serves a Westside dinner with produce woven into the meal. Compared with a tasting-menu restaurant, it should be easier for a mixed group because the menu has familiar anchors: tartare, New York strip, prime rib, steak au poivre, and chocolate mousse. The menu balances familiar steakhouse dishes with vegetables and seafood.
The Menu: Comté Gougères to Rosewood Ranch Beef
The pickled jalapeño and Comté gougères are filled with Comté custard. The pickled jalapeño and Comté gougères use French technique, salt, and heat for the martini menu.
The opening run of small plates includes the Matilda's baguette with butter, an Ortiz anchovy and Gordal olive gilda, and steak tartare dressed with a mayonnaise-based emulsion of ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and Tabasco. The steak tartare gives the table a familiar reference point before the live-fire dishes arrive.
For the beef course, Stiletto uses Rosewood Ranch in Texas for a New York strip and bone-in rib-eye. The ranch raises cattle that are a cross between Black Angus and wagyu. That is the main reason for steak-focused diners to book Stiletto rather than treat it as another new Santa Monica opening. The menu also includes prime rib with braised cabbage, roasted carrots, and crispy potatoes, plus steak au poivre.
The menu has enough non-beef anchors to work for a group dinner. Peri peri chicken comes with preserved lemon, herbs, and aioli. Pork schnitzel is finished with gorgonzola and served with a beer-and-mustard sauce. Baked gnocchi comes with Taleggio. Dessert stays in a recognizable lane: sticky toffee pudding, strawberry-topped pavlova, lemon ice with raspberry, and chocolate mousse. Stiletto serves martinis, snacky openings, market vegetables, and beef from a named ranch.
Stiletto has a dedicated martini menu, pints of Guinness, wine, and other cocktails. That makes the 38-seat marble bar important. For two people, the bar offers gougères, tartare, a martini, and a bar-focused dinner in a shorter format than the dining room.
The Airport Building Is Part of the Decision
Stiletto was designed by Barbara O'Rourke of Bells and Whistles, the firm that also worked on Providence and San Diego's Jeune et Jolie. Barbara O'Rourke of Bells and Whistles designed Stiletto, and the firm also worked on Providence and San Diego's Jeune et Jolie. Stiletto is the Santa Monica version tied to a 1940s airport building, a marble bar, and a steakhouse format.
The interior has 100 seats in the main dining room and 38 more at the marble bar. That scale gives the restaurant a different energy from a 20-seat counter, and it changes how you should book. For a business dinner or a four-person table, the main dining room gives you the full read on the live-fire menu. For a solo diner or a pair, the bar gives you the fastest way to understand whether Stiletto belongs in your Santa Monica rotation.
The airport setting and the restored 1940s administrative building give the meal a fixed address identity. The Douglas X-3 Stiletto reference ties the name to the neighboring museum. That may sound secondary until you are choosing a restaurant for guests who have already eaten across Los Angeles. A room with a specific building story beats another anonymous dining room when the food is good enough to carry the evening.
Stiletto is set for summer 2027. For now, the decision is indoors: main room or marble bar. When the terrace opens, Stiletto becomes a different proposition for warm-weather dinners, especially for groups who want the airport setting without committing to the full indoor steakhouse mood.
How to Book and What to Expect
Stiletto's first weeks make it a strong booking, not a casual drop-in. The restaurant has 100 dining room seats and 38 bar seats, but new openings from a named restaurateur and a chef with London restaurant credentials draw early curiosity. If you want the full menu, book the dining room. If you want the quickest read on whether Stiletto works for you, aim for the marble bar and order a martini, the Comté gougères, steak tartare, and one beef dish if appetite allows.
For a first dinner, start with the Matilda's baguette and butter, then add the Ortiz anchovy and Gordal olive gilda or the gougères. Bring in the bluefin tuna with melon, cucumber, and mint or the barbecued leek with crab, lemon, and hazelnut before steak. For beef, choose the Rosewood Ranch bone-in rib-eye if the table wants a shared centerpiece, or the New York strip if you want a cleaner steakhouse order. Finish with sticky toffee pudding if you want the most familiar close, or pavlova if you want fruit and meringue after beef.
Stiletto is less obvious for a quiet anniversary dinner in its first weeks, when the room is still finding pace. It is better for a group that wants to order across the menu, drink martinis or Guinness, and see how Powell translates London experience through Santa Monica produce. It is also a smart pick for diners who usually find steakhouses too narrow, because the vegetable and seafood dishes are built into the structure rather than tacked on as courtesy options.
Patrick Powell, Sean Martin, local market sourcing, Rosewood Ranch beef, and a terrace coming in summer 2027 are already part of Stiletto's setup. Book early for the bar and the beef now; watch the terrace opening to see how Stiletto changes from new restaurant to full Westside gathering place.
