{"id":294930,"date":"2026-02-17T01:47:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T01:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/294930\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T01:47:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T01:47:28","slug":"meet-the-l-a-restaurateur-who-designed-bad-bunnys-super-bowl-casita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/294930\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the L.A. restaurateur who designed Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl casita"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Sunday afternoon Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny fell through a roof and into the world of Federico Laboureau, a South L.A. restaurateur who sells empanadas, choripan and milanesa \u2014 and who also designed a central set piece for the historic Super Bowl halftime show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Laboureau can most often be found in his Argentinian restaurant, Fuegos LA, which he operates with his partner in love and business, Maximilian Pizzi. But with years of experience in production design and fashion, he recently found himself dreaming up the inside of Bad Bunny\u2019s casita, a set piece previously seen only from the exterior during the Grammy Award-winning rapper and singer\u2019s \u201cNo Me Quiero Ir De Aqui\u201d residency in Puerto Rico<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the Super Bowl halftime show, the casita made an appearance again, and this time, the world would see its interior for the first time.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Laboureau\u2019s rendering of the interior of Bad Bunny\u2019s casita.<\/p>\n

(Fuegos LA \/ Lucia Raiden)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018This is amazing,\u2019\u201d Laboureau said.<\/p>\n

Though not a football fan \u2014 he\u2019d been raised on Argentinian f\u00fatbol instead \u2014 he viewed the job as symbolic, an emblem of the Latin community standing together in a climate of fear marked by national immigration raids and deportations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a Latino \u2014 or I think for everyone \u2014 a casita means a temple where you get together with your family, with your friend, where love happens,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the actual set, but being part of a huge event and showing Latinos we are here, we are not going anywhere. We are massive. We are happiness, we are passion and we are community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The performance also spotlighted another L.A. restaurateur<\/a>: Villa\u2019s Tacos\u2019 Victor Villa, who danced behind a plancha on the field.<\/p>\n

A friend in production had reached out to Laboureau in December, inquiring whether he might be interested in participating in a top-secret project. He signed a small pile of paperwork, then learned what his job would entail: designing the inside of the staged casita belonging to Bad Bunny, or Benito Antonio Mart\u00ednez Ocasio.<\/p>\n

They presented Laboureau with \u201ca white canvas box\u201d: a 20-by-20-foot set featuring three windows and two doors. They constructed the faux casita at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall, minutes from the restaurant.<\/p>\n

The restaurateur envisioned a boilerplate abuelita\u2019s house, which could represent Bad Bunny\u2019s, or his, or anyone\u2019s. As someone raised by his grandmother, Laboureau saw the experience as a way to remember and reconnect to his own heritage and fill the space with \u201clittle comfy details\u201d like porcelain figurines and plastic flowers. Wanting the knickknacks to look appropriately aged, he and his team scoured flea markets and thrift stores in addition to prop houses.<\/p>\n

Bad Bunny pretaped the segment inside the casita, faux-falling through the roof and quite literally crashing a family gathering before exiting to the remainder of the performance.<\/p>\n

\"Laboureau, <\/p>\n

Laboureau, Fuegos LA co-owner and designer, left, on set inside the casita with Bad Bunny, right.<\/p>\n

(Federico Laboureau)<\/p>\n

Laboureau and Pizzi met in Argentina nearly 17 years ago, with Laboureau working in fashion and Pizzi in the events industry. They relocated to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles 12 years ago after shifting career focus toward entertainment production. While here they\u2019ve created for Disney and Amazon, among others, and bought a house and became citizens. <\/p>\n

But the film industry ground to a halt during the pandemic and industry strikes. Laboureau and Pizzi needed to pivot, and as lifelong food obsessives, they launched their own company \u2014 without having any experience as chefs.<\/p>\n

They began Fuegos LA humbly, hand-making empanadas in their home kitchen and freezing them, then selling to friends. With word-of-mouth success, they rented a commercial kitchen three months later, which allowed them to expand via delivery platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started the business with two pesos, with nothing,\u201d Laboureau said. \u201cWe\u2019d sell two empanadas and then with that money, invest in fliers. We\u2019d sell another empanada, we\u2019d buy packaging. Literally it was like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pop-ups and delivery improved their business, but with growing interest, they needed a permanent space. They found a location in a South L.A. strip mall, took hospitality classes and expanded the menu with Argentinian stalwarts<\/a> \u2014 and some of them tinged by the international flavors of the couple\u2019s travels. Now they source their meats from Argentina and their produce from local farmers markets.<\/p>\n

They also use their storefront as a cultural hub, offering tango nights, a community farmers market, live jazz and storytelling supper clubs. They began expanding their business to other storefronts within the strip mall; later this month, they plan to unveil a new dining room along with Argentine pizzas.<\/p>\n

Fuegos LA\u2019s success has been gradually building beyond their dreams, but given immigration sweeps and a climate of fear, Laboureau said that some days he feels like his \u201cAmerican dream is an American nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Pizzi and Laboureau run their business with an ethos similar to Bad Bunny\u2019s love-conquers-hate message from the Super Bowl and Grammy speech: Everything tastes better with love. Love, he said, is Fuegos LA\u2019s \u201cmain recipe,\u201d and a guiding light during a tumultuous time for Latin communities in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have my American passport, but it\u2019s challenging, what my community is going through,\u201d Laboureau said. \u201cIn a moment when our president is declaring the official language is English<\/a>, having the main show of the Super Bowl where somebody\u2019s singing in Spanish is something historical. It was being part of something very powerful for my community.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Laboureau brought empanadas to Bad Bunny\u2019s dressing room, he\u2019s unsure if the megastar had a chance to try them. But Benito \u2014 along with all Angelenos \u2014 has an open invitation to try them at Fuegos LA.<\/p>\n

Fuegos LA <\/a>is located at 3957 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles, and is open Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday afternoon Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny fell through a roof and into the world of Federico…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[31524,9877,437,434,435,436,34882,114,149503,438,146,25052,149501,149504,9555,85,46,149505,1854,149502,127504,149506,1661],"class_list":{"0":"post-294930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-a-m","9":"tag-argentina","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-artsdesign","14":"tag-bad-bunny","15":"tag-business","16":"tag-casita","17":"tag-design","18":"tag-entertainment","19":"tag-experience","20":"tag-federico-laboureau","21":"tag-fuegos-la","22":"tag-house","23":"tag-il","24":"tag-israel","25":"tag-latin-community","26":"tag-love","27":"tag-maximilian-pizzi","28":"tag-p-m","29":"tag-super-bowl-casita","30":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}