Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants - Part 2

The Hungry Cat The Hungry Cat is the restaurant a lot of us in Los Angeles have been waiting for, a local answer to Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco or New York’s Pearl Oyster Bar, a place to drop into for a dozen oysters or a bowl of shrimp, a boiled crab or a bowl of chowder. The wine list is tiny, but includes a ton of obscure seafood-friendly wines — PicpouldePinet,anyone? — and everything is available by the glass. The crab cake, more crab than cake, is tasty if modestly portioned, made from what the establishment claims is a 100-year-old Baltimore recipe. The primary object of desire here is the lobster roll, an abstracted rendition of the New England beach-shack standard transformed into a split, crisp, rectangular object about the size of a Twinkie. In Cape Porpoise, the $22 it costs would buy you a lobster the size of a small pony. But we are in Hollywood, where the next acceptable lobster roll may be 2,800 miles away. 1535N.VineSt.,Hollywood,(323)462-2155,www.thehungrycat.com. Mon.–Sat.5:30p.m.–mid.,Sun.5:30–10p.m.Beerandwine.Validatedparking.AE,MC,V.Smallplates$8–$22.Seafood. The Ivy A certain breed of well-groomed Angelenos like to look at East Coast media people looking at Angelenos, which is why they flock to the Ivy, a pretty, sun-bleached patio restaurant that looks the way Los Angeles is supposed to if your experience of the town comes from the movies. The food — crab cakes, corn chowder, New Orleans–style barbecued shrimp — is acceptable though expensive, down-home food at uptown prices. But the Ivy may thrive because it caters to the sort of whims legion in this part of town. If South Beach and Atkins were national cuisines, the Ivy would be an ethnic restaurant. 113N.RobertsonBlvd.,LosAngeles,(310)274-8303.LunchanddinnerMon.–Fri.11:30a.m.–10:30p.m.,Sat.11a.m.–10:30p.m.;brunchSun.10:30a.m.–3:30p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,CB,DC,MC,V.Entrées$25–$39.American. Jar Any place in town can serve you a grilled T-bone, but Suzanne Tracht’s snazzy steak house is strictly postmodernsville, man, chefly riffs on the strip steak and the porterhouse, the hash brown and the French fry that may or may not incorporate every last pea tendril and star-anise infusion in the Asian-fusion playbook, if that happens to be your desire. Some people we know have never even tried the steak here — the braised pork belly, the glorious pot roast and the various and sundry wonders of Nancy Silverton’s Mozzarella Monday are just too compelling. But the steak is about as good as it gets. The décor is straight off the set of a Cary Grant movie. And there’s banana cream pie for dessert. 8225BeverlyBlvd.,LosAngeles,(323)655-6566.Dinnerdaily5:30–11p.m.,brunchSun.10a.m.–2p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,D,MC,V.Entrées$19–$29.CaliforniaAmerican. JiRaffe JiRaffe is a pleasant space in a bright corner of Santa Monica, all neo-Palladian windows, white tablecloths and the kind of minimal Gallic décor you see in the restored farmhouses they feature in ElleDecor.Raphael Lunetta’s food tends to be elegant, almost ladylike, with the sort of seasonality you might expect from a serious restaurant located a few hundred yards from the best farmers market in Southern California, and careful, restrained presentations. JiRaffe is a real California bistro, the kind of casual yet slightly formal place the Ivy only pretends to be, and with much better food. In restaurants as in architecture, sometimes less is more. 502SantaMonicaBlvd.,SantaMonica,(310)917-6671.Mon.6–9p.m.,Tues.–Thurs.6–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.6–11p.m.,Sun.5:30–9p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,MC,V.$23–$28.50.French. Joe’s Everybody loves an underdog, and at Joe’s, which has been an institution since it was the size of a rent-controlled studio beach apartment, half of Venice has a crush on Joe Miller’s uncomplicated cuisine. You may not have a transcendent experience at Joe’s, and you’ll spend more than you think you should, but there is this to be said for the restaurant: The kitchen never, ever screws up the fish. 1023AbbotKinneyBlvd.,Venice,(310)399-5811.LunchTues.–Fri.noon–2:30p.m.,dinnerTues.–Fri.6–11p.m.,Sat.–Sun.6–11p.m.,brunchSat.-Sun.11a.m.-2:30p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,MC,V.Entrées$10–$25,plus$38–$45prixfixedinner.California. John o’ Groats The restaurant is named after a town at the northernmost point in Scotland, but give or take an order of fish ’n’ chips or two, the menu is pretty much all-American, with baking-powder biscuits, fluffy omelets, smoked pork chops and stretchy buckwheat pancakes. And although there seem to be no actual groats on the menu — which is kind of a relief — the steel-cut Irish oatmeal with bananas and heavy cream is fine. The best breakfasts on the Westside. 10516W.PicoBlvd.,WestLosAngeles,(310)204-0692.Breakfastandlunchdaily7a.m.–3p.m.Beerandwine.Streetparking.MC,V.Entrées$9–$14.American. Josie Josie LeBalch, who spent her 20s as the chef of an Italian restaurant but cooks with a French accent, is most famous for game dishes but may be as deft with a dish like baby squid and lentils as she is with all-American preparations of duck, wild boar and elk — although her guinea fowl with wild rice is pretty special. She is large. She contains multitudes. And there’s chocolate bread pudding for dessert. 2424PicoBlvd.,SantaMonica,(310)581-9888.DinnerMon.–Thurs.6–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.6-11p.m.,Sun.5:30–9p.m.Fullbar.Takeout.Valetparking.AE,MC,V.Entrées$18–$32.ProgressiveAmericanwithFrenchandItalian. Kagaya Shabushabuis pretty basic: a slice of prime meat swished through bubbling broth for a second or two, just until the pink becomes frosted with white. If you’ve done it right — and if the quality of the ingredients is as high as it is at Little Tokyo’s superb (and expensive) Kagaya — the texture is extraordinary, almost liquid, and the concentrated, sourish flavor of really good beef becomes vivid. 418E.SecondSt.,downtown,(213)617-1016.Mon.–Sat.6–10:30p.m.,Sun.6–10p.m.Wine,beer,sake.Lotparking.DC,MC,V.$38fixedprice.Japanese. Kiriko See “Raw Power: Los Angeles sushi chefs reinvent the modern kitchen.” Koi See “Raw Power: Los Angeles sushi chefs reinvent the modern kitchen.”