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CAFÉ MORE
1432-A Fourth St., Santa Monica
(310) 576-6789

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Ammo

1155 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90038

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Hollywood

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Darya Restaurant

12130 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Category: Restaurant >

Region: West L.A.

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Category: Restaurant > Asian

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Native Foods

1110 1/2 Gayley Ave.
Westwood, CA 90024

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: West L.A.

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Nick & Stef's

330 S. Hope St. (Wells Fargo Center)
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Downtown

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More About

• Joachim Splichal
• Tanya Petrovna
• Asia (Band)
• Eating Out
• Foods

Dwarfed by the brazen neon of Harvelle’s Blues Club behind Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, Café More’s subtle façade blends into a clutter of signs on its ’20s building. This glamorized former coffee shop aims to serve all things to all people: breakfast, lunch, dinner, tapas, weekend late-night supper and coffee-bar fare. Despite its lack of focus, some efforts work quite well, but the kitchen and waitstaff of this 2-month-old spot gets periodically overchallenged. Pricey omelets and fritatas cooked to a gentle rubberiness one morning spoiled a breakfast plate that otherwise tried hard to please, with home fries of tiny red potatoes and a cup of very fresh diced fruit. Tapas are nicely rendered here: grilled veggie slices splashed with unctuous aioli sauce; seared, spicy salmon medallions perched on pumpernickel alongside a tangle of sprout salad; barbecue duck-confit pizza — truly a weird-sounding fusion, studded with moist chunks of duck on a fairly good crust. Entrées cover the bases — steak, chicken, salmon and pasta — but seem lackluster choices, a situation that’s understandable given the kitchen’s range of tasks. For a full meal you will want at least three tapas ($5 and $6); most men will want four or five, plus at least a shared dessert, so your tab can mount fairly quickly. Wine, beer and champagne, while not standard fare at most coffee shops, are offered here. Open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Sunday–Thursday until midnight, Friday-Saturday until 3 a.m. Meals from $7 to $20.(LB)

NATIVE FOODS
11101/2 Gayley Ave., Westwood
(310) 209-1055

Tanya Petrovna is the heroine of the local vegan world. Co-proprietor of three easy-going Native Foods cafés (in Palm Springs, Palm Desert and now Westwood), she’s made a name for her restaurants by refining such simple ingredients as textured soy protein and tofu, using seasonings excerpted from worldwide cuisines. Her homemade tempeh, a nutty-tasting cultured legume cake popular in Indonesia, and seitan, a meatlike wheat gluten, taste better than the more commercial versions. Petrovna puts these ingredients to work in big bowls of salad, on flat wraps, and in sandwiches, tacos, burritos and pastas. She includes loads of fresh veggies and uses oils sparingly. Even a group of steadfast carnivores found most dishes here acceptable. A few minor complaints: under-“caramelized” onions topping a pizza that had a lavoshlike crust so limp it was impossible to pick up, and even difficult to eat with a knife and fork; and a too-watery dressing on the otherwise pleasant Chinese salad. Open Monday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–10 p.m. Entrées from $6.50 to $8.50.(LB)

NICK & STEF’S
330 S. Hope St., Downtown
(213) 680-0330

Nick & Stef’s is one of several à la carte steak houses to open in conjunction with the new Staples Center, but Joachim Splichal’s imprint is unmistakable and delightful in the variety and range of starters: 12 vegetables, 12 kinds of potatoes and 12 sauces (you choose the one you want to accompany your entrée). Even traditional items have the Splichal spin: The standard steakhouse shrimp cocktail is here four hefty, spicy char-grilled shrimp served with coleslaw and barbecue sauce in a martini glass, altogether brimming with flavor. Caesars are assembled tableside. A waitperson carefully spoons, squeezes and dribbles ingredients into a wooden bowl, stirs ’em up and then adds lettuce. But for all the show, the salad is pasty and dry. The meat is, obviously, the star here. The filet (which comes in two sizes) is inarguably excellent: Wonderfully cooked, the meat is full-flavored with just the hint of that addictive cheeselike sourness. The New York, also cooked to perfection, was tasty enough but not distinctive, and a real chore to chew. The marbled rib-eye had a grand depth of meatiness and a complex age but, again, was chewier than expected. Vegetarians can dine here more happily than in many other restaurants. There’s the traditional creamed spinach, but why not have rapini sautéed with garlic? Beets, roasted and slyly smoky, are fabulous in a horseradish cream, and beer-battered onion rings are at once crisp, crunchy, sweet and slippery: irresistible. It’s hard to pass up chocolate cake from a Splichal kitchen, but the pies are even better. Open for lunch weekdays and for dinner daily. Entrées from $22 to $32. (MH)