Table for Three // Chelsea Matthews at Bucato
This month, we teamed up with Octoplace for a Table for Three with Chelsea Matthews of Matte Black at the long-awaited Bucato in Culver City. We’re so excited for this new collaboration - it’s like a potluck, where we brings the creatives and Octoplace brings the food, which makes for some pretty epic meals.
Puno’s had it on her mind to check out Chef Evan Funke’s handmade pasta at Bucato and we immediately thought of Chelsea since she just moved into her new office that’s a few blocks away.
Chelsea’s got talent like a buttery croissant. Delicious layers of talent. She’s the CEO & Founder of Matte Black, a culture-marketing firm based in Los Angeles, and an interior design junkie meets blogger at Matte Black Design. And just recently, she started Social Derby, a one-day social media workshop.
Read on as BUNCH and Octoplace take out this amazing babe.
Your office is delightfully unassuming from the outside. It’s quintessential LA for me - a hidden gem. How did you decide on this location?
Hidden gems are hard to find, but they’re all I seek. It’s the unconventional spaces that have limitless potential yet they’re budget-friendly, which is an obvious win-win. I found the posting for this space online, and the art gallery-esque bones of it in the photos drew me in, not to mention the fact that it’s own stand alone space (not in some stodgy office building).
From the outside it’s a little dark and eery, but as someone recently mentioned, it’s like my own company billboard (it’s painted a matte black). I had never even thought of it that way! I’ve always loved Culver. It’s a little bit design district, a little bit lunch spot haven, a little bit undiscovered… and I adore that.
I feel like Culver City has the best selection of drinking spots on the west side. Is that just me?
I can say pretty confidently that Culver hosts some of my favorite bars: Mandrake is always a great whiskey-filled-90s-rap-induced dance party, Blind Barber for a well-crafted cocktail, and Oldfields for a nightcap.
Ermahgerd, your interior design skills are killing me. What has been your favorite office project/item?
I’m a complete interior design junkie. It gets me more excited than a new pair of shoes (that’s saying something). I share the space with an interior designer (SVZ Interior Design) and a boutique PR firm (Elle Communications), so the overall design of the space needed to be conducive to several small businesses, while being bright, creative & inspired.
As a culture-marketing firm, you are constantly reinventing what marketing is. Can you tell me about one of Matte Black’s most interesting intersections of culture + marketing?
We analyze cultural trends daily, and use those findings to drive strategies & campaigns for our clients. Sure, there’s a cookie-cutter approach to marketing that anyone can follow, but we prefer to look at the pulse of pop culture and let that steer what we do.
One such intersection, is that we curate a monthly trend report called the Shape/Shift report which is seeded to an exclusive group of our clients & colleagues which serves as a round-up-of-sorts of all that we’ve absorbed that month. As an example, a little while back we launched a #selfie campaign for a client that had just launched iPhone cases, and seeded it to influencers & bloggers who notoriously posted photos of themselves (which always feature the back of the phone reflected in the mirror). Needless to say, the case was smothered across Instagram, and not only did we garner that first impression when they posted, but continue to garner impressions with each additional post there on. It’s fun to watch.
Can you give us some hints on what the Social Derby events are about?
It’s going to be a day of creative brand building in the social media space. The reason I developed Social Derby was to be able to offer some of what we do as an agency to all the small businesses and creatives who don’t (yet) have the budget to hire companies like mine to handle it for them. So it will cover everything from understanding brand voice, to developing a social strategy, to truly creating ROI from your social efforts (whatever that ROI is to you: be it sales, community building, personal brand positioning… whatever). We’ll have guest speakers, cocktails, and - most importantly – a platform for a room of like-minded creatives to connect and breed ideas together. Connectivity and community building like this can lead to endless growth for businesses & individuals.
Next stop! Bucato. They have a strict no cell-phone or camera policy so the following photos were taken by Scott Smith and provided by Bucato. The flavors were complex, the ingredients were local, each dish was elegantly crafted with precision and diligence, and I’m coming back.
It may seem hypocritical, but I appreciate that Bucato doesn’t allow photos taken in their restaurant.
I think there’s something to be said for being in the moment & enjoying what’s in front of you (whether it’s the food or the company). That said, when you’re eating a meal that good, you want to brag about it.
The handmade (literally, no machines) strascinati pasta with duck ragu was incredible. Bravo Chef Evan Funke! What was your favorite dish?
Hands down, the Crispy Polenta with wild mushrooms, sunny-side farm egg, and parmigiano-reggiano. It was rich, full of flavor & utterly delicious.
I couldn’t agree more! Plus, anything with a poached egg has my name all over it. The textural combination of the caramelized polenta, runny egg, and parmesan covered mushrooms took my breath away.
The octopus with escarole, nduja (spicy spreadable pork), and shelling beans was perfectly cooked. The oils from the ndjua carried the beans and octopus with great umami flavor.
Words and photographs by Puno of Octoplace.
