Restaurants for Wine Lovers

Comments (0) By Jonathan Gold Wednesday, Feb 6 2008

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CampanileCampanile has had one of the country's most influential Italian wine lists since the waning days of the 1980s, although sommelier Jay Perrin moved it solidly into the tannic territory of the French. Still, the restaurant is probably still best-known for the prowess of Mark Peel, the LeBron James of the grill, who showcases more shades of fire and heat than any chef on Earth: rosemary-charred lamb, cedar-plank salmon, grilled prime rib with bitter greens. Grilled-fish soup is a sort of deconstructed bouillabaisse, a dish involving four or five sea creatures, each with a different cooking time and a different capacity for heat — a feat of kitchen virtuosity with the same degree of difficulty as a reverse 360 dunk. You'll be wanting a chilled bottle of Cassis with that. 624 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 938-1447. Lunch Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Mon.-Wed. 6-10 p.m., Thurs.-Sat. 5:30-11 p.m.; brunch Sunday 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, DC, MC, V. California/Mediterranean.

Cobras & MatadorsSteven Arroyo is the Bill Graham of tapas in Los Angeles, the impresario who made the concept of Spanish drinks 'n' snacks as popular as sushi platters after dozens of others had tried and failed. And his dark, buzzy tapas parlors are teeming dens of olive oil and garlic, octopus and cured pig, grilled meats and pungent concoctions of seafood and paprika and beans rushed to the table still crackling in unglazed crocks. The Los Feliz restaurant has a nicely curated list of Spanish and South American wines; at the Hollywood restaurant, you buy your wines from the shop conveniently located next door. When you bring your prize back to the table, don't be surprised if the counter guy is standing right there, corkscrew in hand. 7615 W. Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 932-6178. 4655 Hollywood Blvd., Los Feliz, (323) 669-3922. Dinner Sun.-Thurs. 6-11 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 6 p.m.-mid. BYOB. Valet parking. MC, V. Spanish.

Comme CaDavid Myers' new brasserie has the look of a dining room restored to use after 70 years of disuse: black and white, lined with mirrors, dotted with actual French speakers. The oysters are briny, crisp and alive. The housemade terrines and pates are first-rate. There are snails in garlic butter and frisee salads with bacon and poached eggs, choucroute garni on Wednesdays and braised pork belly on Saturdays as well as great onion soup. At lunch, they have the best cheeseburgers in Los Angeles. The wine list includes French village wines that are uncannily appropriate with the food; the house carafe is a decent Cotes du Rhone. And there's that great, happy roar of music and people with a little too much wine in them, and the sense that somebody, somewhere in the restaurant is having the most memorable evening of her life. 8479 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (323) 782-1178 or www.commecarestaurant.com. Open daily, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. AE, MC, V. Full bar. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $74-$96. French.

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Bastide

8475 Melrose Place
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: West Hollywood

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Cobras & Matadors

7615 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Restaurant > Spanish

Region: Melrose/ Beverly/ Fairfax

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Cut If Spago is at heart Wolfgang Puck's restaurant, its menu plumped out with his easygoing air, his enriched stocks and his Austrian favorites, Cut, despite obvious signs of the master's touch, is actually the love child of Puck's capo, Spago chef Lee Hefter, whose obsessions lie as much in technique as they do in produce, and whose menus of warm veal-tongue salads, succulent maple-glazed pork bellies, potato "tarte tatin" and flan-stuffed marrow bones tend to be more modern but less user friendly than the dishes Puck turns out on his own. If you have $120 to spend on a steak, you might want to consider visiting Cut — and splitting the Kobe strip four or five ways, because unless you happen to play in the NFL, there is no way you can digest even a small example of the plutonium-dense meat by yourself. Ask sommelier Dana Farner to pour you something you've never seen before. Look out for the gnarliest Malbec of your life. Cut, designed to the teeth by Getty Center architect Richard Meier, is to the other steak houses in town what Spago was to the pizza parlors back in 1981. 9500 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Beverly Hills, (310) 275-5200. Mon.-Thurs. 5:30-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:30-11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking a half-block south of Wilshire Blvd. on Rodeo Drive. AE, D, MC, V. California Contemporary.

Enoteca DragoIn New York City, Italian wine bars multiply like mosquitoes. In Beverly Hills, we have Enoteca Drago, an outpost of Celestino Drago's pasta-driven empire, where you can chase a plate of prosciutto, a mess of baby octopods, or occasionally the elusive lardo— cured pig fat in the style of northwestern Tuscany, melted onto a slab of fried bread — with a glass of crisp Verdicchio from the Marches. Some of the wines are served in flights — sets of small pours arranged by grape or by region. Enoteca Drago does function as a full restaurant, although it is occasionally hard to remember this when you're floating in the middle of a Brunello reverie, but you will also find great pasta with pesto and one of the few proper versions of spaghetti carbonara in town. 410 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 786-8236. Open Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, DC, MC, V. Entrees. $13.50-$18. Italian.