Where to Eat Now: New to the List

Kumo The southwest corner of Kings Road and Melrose is where good restaurants go to die, the original address of Ma Maison damning future occupiers like a curse on a tribal burying ground. The hideously ugly office-building restaurant erected on the site resisted all attempts at remodeling. But Kumo is just stunning, a glowing, cloud-white space outfitted with curved white-leather banquettes, feng shui-ed to a turn, a glamorous open kitchen and a sleek Chiho Aoshima video installation. People have accused owner Michael Ovitz of a lot of things, but you've got to admire his taste. Still, Hiro Fujita's menu at Kumo, which is a spinoff of the roll-intensive Westwood sushi joint Hamasaku, is less serene than the surroundings, decent sushi sharing space with things like olive bowls and the usual Matsuhisa knockoffs, as well as truly bad ideas like sashimi pizza with miso where the tomato sauce would ordinarily be. But Fujita's cuisine, which when you got past the Judy Rolls at Hamasaku included some pretty serious sushi, may well elevate to the level of the room and the kind, understated service. 8360 Melrose Ave., W. Hlywd., (323) 651-5866. Lunch Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Mon.-Thurs. 6-11 p.m. & Fri.-Sat. 6 p.m.-mid.; closed Sun. Full bar. Valet parking. Major CC. Japanese.

Beverly Hills and Vicinity

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Orochon Ramen

123 S. Onizuka St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Restaurant > Japanese

Region: Downtown

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Pitfire Pizza Company

108 W. Second St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Restaurant > Pizza

Region: Downtown

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• Culver City
• Christiano Bollini
• Santa Monica
• Thai Food and Cooking
• Meat

PaperfishHere is Joachim Splichal's newest outpost, a bright, streamlined fish restaurant furnished with a warehouseful of Knoll. The menu, an Asiany document that reads like a relic of Wolfgang Puck's 1990s, is somewhat of a departure for Splichal, whose structures have up to now leaned toward the European. (The executive chef is Yianni Koufodontis, late of Petros in the South Bay.) There are sashimi dishes, including not entirely persuasive takes on post-Matsuhisa standards like kanpachi sashimi and scallops buried under avocado purée, as well as fried oysters and miso-marinated black cod. The main courses — seafood risotto, fried skate with lemon and pine nuts, monkfish saltimbocca — tend to be more pan-Mediterranean in the classical Splichal style. The name puns on the French technique of cooking fish en papillote, roasted with aromatics in a moist fold of parchment — or here, plastic — and when it comes time for the main course, almost every table has a cart parked alongside it, manned by a captain who frees the Florida snapper from its receptacle. The snapper, firm and moistened with lemongrass broth, is very good. 345 N. Maple Dr., Beverly Hills, (310) 858-6030. Lunch Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Mon.-Thurs. 5:30-9:30 p.m. & Fri.-Sat. 5:30-10:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet. Major CC.Seafood.

Westwood/West L.A./Century City

Craft When chef Tom Colicchio's original Craft opened in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighborhood, it was a fantasy restaurant, a place where customers were invited to construct their meals from scratch, or rather from gleaming copper pots of prepared meats, sauces, starches and vegetables all ordered à la carte. At Craft in Century City, in a handsome neo-Neutra space a few yards from both ICM and CAA, it is a veritable festival of à la carte à gogo: high-quality slabs of wagyu beef, local sea bass wrapped in prosciutto, roast Heritage pork laminated with sorrel leaves and braised Alaskan sablefish that you are invited to pair with sautéed long beans or baby turnips, creamed Tuscan kale or smoky, beautifully roasted wild mushrooms, braised peewee potatoes or shrimp risotto. By the time you have crowded your table with all the side dishes you want to taste and ordered a modest wine, you have probably spent $100 a person — and bumped into the likes of James Caan and Mayor Villaraigosa. 10100 Constellation Blvd., Century City, (310) 279-4180. Lunch Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Mon.-Thurs. 6-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:45-10:30 p.m., Sun. 5-9 p.m. Full bar. Valet or paid lot. AE, DC, MC, V. Contemporary American.

Flame Persian Cuisine Even the quickest glance into Flame, the slick Iranian restaurant on the Tehrangeles stretch of Westwood Boulevard, reveals the shiny clay sphere at its heart, the tanor oven, source of some of the city's finest flatbread. Regulars know that you can pretty much make a meal of this tanori bread, singed and still smoking, smeared with cold butter and wrapped around an onion, especially if you accompany it with the house's panir sabzi platter: a big plate of fresh mint, lemony Persian basil and superpungent Persian tarragon, along with walnuts soaked in salt water and a block of squeaky feta cheese. Much of the produce is organic, bought at farmers' markets, and the restaurant is one of the few Iranian places in the area that serve halal food. But Flame is basically a place to get kebabs — juicy skewers of ground chicken or marinated chicken breast, tartly mineral rack of lamb, shish kebab and fish kebab, and a wonderful kebab of cornish game hen. Even at lunch, the customers tend to be better-dressed than they are anywhere this side of Spago and the Grill. Flame is the nicest place on this street. 1442 Westwood Blvd., Westwood, (310) 470-3399. Open daily 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. BYOB. Street parking. AE, MC, V. Persian.