Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants

The Hungry Cat
Is it about the hamburger? Very well then, it’s always about the hamburger, which in this case is made with loosely packed organic Niman Ranch whatever, bleeding profusely through blue cheese into a La Brea Bakery roll that may be a little too crusty for the job. Two bucks more will get you a fried egg on that. The hamburger in question is the only meat dish at Hungry Cat, Suzanne Goin and David Lentz’s odd lozenge of a restaurant dedicated to the neverending bounty of the sea, including oysters, clams, chowder, pan-roasted skate, marinated yellowtail with plums, etc. It’s a fishy, fishy place, the Hungry Cat, best known for its lobster roll, a buttery, abstracted rendition of the New England beach-shack standard transformed into a split, crisp, rectangular object about the size of a Twinkie. In Maine, the $20-plus 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. Lentz is from Maryland, meaning his fetish object of choice is fried crab cakes, which Hungry Cat not coincidentally also serves. The restaurant is a civic treasure, open early for fishy weekend brunches and late for supper after the ArcLight, a place to drop into for a dozen oysters or a bowl of shrimp, plateaux de mer or hamachi pastrami, a glass of Picpoul de Pinet or an expertly mixed Aviation from the truly wonderful cocktail bar. 1535 N. Vine St., Hlywd., (323) 462-2155, thehungrycat.com. Mon.-Sat., noon-mid., Sun., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Full bar. Validated parking. AE, MC, V.

Il Moro
The most puzzling news of the last several months was Il Moro’s hiring of Gianfranco Minuz, the reclusive chef whose brilliant dishes of Friuli and the Veneto always made Tre Venezie one of the most distinctive Italian restaurants in town — so far, he has been preparing the specials every evening, although I suspect they won’t include his signature casserole of polenta and sauerkraut. Il Moro is more or less an embassy of Bolognese cuisine, best known for Davide Ghizzoni’s tiny, meat-stuffed cappelletti floating in a deep-yellow capon broth, baked lasagna enriched with a gobs of béchamel, chestnut pasta with porcini, and L.A.’s definitive pumpkin tortelloni. Prosciutto and salami are served in the traditional Modenese way — with gnocco, oblong, unsweetened beignets that would be equally appreciated by New Orleanians and by Homer Simpson. Tucked into the ground floor of a Westside office building, Il Moro is open late for pizza and wine, and backs onto a rather romantic patio, and is usually pretty easy to slip into without a reservation even on a Saturday night. 11400 W. Olympic Blvd., W.L.A., (310) 575-3530. Lunch Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner Mon.-Thurs., 5-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 5-10:30 p.m., Sun., 4:30-9:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, DC, MC, V.

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Angeli Caffe

7274 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Hollywood

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Angelini Osteria

7313 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Melrose/ Beverly/ Fairfax

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Jar
Any place in town can broil an acceptable filet mignon, but Suzanne Tracht’s snazzy steak house is a blast from the Mad Men ’60s, 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. (On weeknights, the bar area becomes Suzpree, a rolling preview of the Bangkok-inspired small-plates restaurant Tracht and Preech Narkthong are planning to open.) 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 the duck-fried rice 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 always banana cream pie for dessert. 8225 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 655-6566. Sun.-Thurs., 5:30-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 5:30-11 p.m.; brunch Sun., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V.

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 Elle Decor. 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. 502 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 917-6671. Mon., 6-9 p.m., Tues.-Thurs., 6-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 6-11 p.m., Sun., 5:30-9 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V.

Jitlada
We don’t take Jitlada for granted, really we don’t. When chef Suthiporn Sungkamee showed up one day with a typewritten list of 75 new items, effectively doubling the number of regional Southern Thai dishes available in L.A., we almost danced on the table with joy. We still hadn’t managed to work our way through quite all of the Southern Thai dishes already on the current menu — curried fish kidneys aren’t necessarily something you want to eat every day. Because Jitlada is that rare thing, a Thai restaurant frequented mostly by non-Thais who come not in spite of but specifically because of the thorny regional dishes listed on the typed pages at the back of the regular menu. Sungkamee — call him Tui — and his sister Jazz Singsanong introduced Hollywood to the Songkhia-style rice salad; the fried sea bass with homegrown turmeric; and the infamous endorphin bomb kua kling Phat Tha Lung, a beef curry that in its purest form is spicy enough to strip the bark off a log. The printed menu is still a roster of the usual Thai banalities, but the typed insert of Southern specialties — originally translated by a visiting Chicago blogger — is basically a list of dishes you’ll find in few other places: delicious, foul-smelling yellow curries of fermented bamboo shoots; delicate lemon curries; curries of fried softshell crabs and the notorious sataw bean; wild tea leaves cooked down like creamed spinach with bits of gluey-skinned catfish; and beef simmered with pickled buds of Asian cinnamon. There are accessible dishes, too, like grilled beef with green papaya salad, steamed mussels with lemongrass and chile, a tropical coco-mango salad and shrimp fried with basil. When you need to show visitors the diversity and wonder still possible in L.A. restaurants, Jitlada is Exhibit A. 5233½ Sunset Blvd., Hlywd., (323) 663-3104. Mon., 5-10 p.m., Tues.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sun., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Beer, wine. Difficult lot parking. AE, MC, V.