Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants

* Moles La Tia
Rocio Camacho is the new face of Oaxacan cooking in L.A., an artist who works in the medium of mole. Gradations of char, pantries full of spices, and an immense range of sullen chile heat wash through her sauces as deftly as Richard Diebenkorn layered paint; wild pre-Colombian flavors translated for the 21st-century palate. It wasn’t that long ago that the traditional seven moles of Oaxaca seemed like the height of exoticism, but on most nights in Camacho’s moody Maravilla dining room, the number is pushed up to 20 and beyond, the magnificent seven supplemented by almond mole on chicken and pistachio mole on salmon, tamarind mole on roasted duck breast, and red pumpkinseed-based pepian on pork, or the intense machamantales, “tablecloth-stainer” mole flavored with dried fruits, on veal. If you’ve ever wanted to compare a ruddy, first-rate mole poblano with its Oaxacan equivalent, this is your only logical destination: Camacho’s mole negro is so dark it seems to suck the light out of the airspace around it. The last time I was as inspired by something so glossy and black, it was part of Charles Ray’s infamous sculpture Ink Box, and it was enshrined in a major museum of art. 4619 E. Cesar Chavez Blvd., L.A., (323) 263-7842, moleslatia.com. Mon.- Thurs., 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri.-Sun., 8 a.m.-9 p.m. No alcohol. Lot parking in rear. MC, V.

* Mozza
As the hydra-headed Mozza oozes down its Melrose block, digesting travel agencies and computer stores and leaving nothing behind but smiling, garlic-scented Prius drivers waiting for the valet, the mozzarella-spewing creature presents even seasoned observers with a single, overwhelming question: How can I get a reservation? As with the famous natural-starter bread recipe of Mozza’s co-owner Nancy Silverton, if you want to eat tonight, it is necessary to have begun the process last month. To be fair, it is often possible to slide into the mozzarella bar on the osteria side, where Silverton herself prepares delicious snacks built on the milky orbs she imports from both Santa Fe Springs and northern Puglia — imagine a great sushi chef who has chosen to work with mozzarella instead of fish — and also have full access to Matt Molina’s handmade pastas and roasted guinea fowl, as well as the skillfully curated all-Italian wine list. Next door at the wonderful but oversubscribed Pizzeria Mozza, Silverton has more or less reinvented the very idea of pizza: airy and burnt and risen around the rim, thin and crisp in the center, neither bready in the traditional Neapolitan manner nor as wispy as you find it in Rome. Any increase in the supply of Mozza pizza is what St. Thomas Aquinas used to call a Universal Good. So the complex’s new Mozza 2Go, and tricked-out to resemble an ancient food shop in Chiusi or Pienza, prepares a broad range of Mozza pizza by preorder, to folks who wait in line — or even by delivery, the availability of which should bump up property values in adjacent areas. (Standard disclaimer: Silverton is a family friend. A family friend who happens to make breathtakingly good pizza.) In addition to a full array of Pizzeria Mozza salads, antipasti, lasagne and panini, Mozza 2Go offers a few things unavailable in the restaurant proper: a porchetta sandwich that practically explodes with fennel pollen; a short, flaky coconut-almond cookie; and a flat, round, hot panino stuffed with greens and custom-made stracciatella cheese that is the closest thing to an Umbrian torta al testo you’ll ever find in California. Pizzeria: 641 N. Highland Ave., L.A., (323) 297-0101. Osteria: 6602 Melrose Ave., L.A., (323) 297-0100. Also 6610 Melrose Ave., Hlywd., (323) 297-0100, mozza2go.com. Open for takeout and delivery Tues.-Sun., noon-11 p.m.

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Anne Fishbein

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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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Musso & Frank Grill
Before we all learned to eat like Tuscan peasants, the height of Hollywood glamour may well have been its white-tablecloth joints: Chasen’s, the Brown Derby and the Musso & Frank Grill — places with extra-dry martinis made to exacting specifications and perfect Caesar salads tossed right in front of you. Before Musso became a martini-fueled Hollywood clubhouse, where generations of character actors learned to show up on Wednesday for the chicken potpie, the restaurant was already a showcase for what was then considered California cuisine: a genteel marriage of the local produce, abundant local fisheries and masculinized lunchroom cooking: avocado cocktails smeared with sweet, pink dressing; sand dabs with lemon; steaks and chops; kidneys Turbigo. It was the cosmopolitan life before Cosmopolitans. Has Musso changed, or have we? The answer may lie in long, drowsy lunches of jellied consommé, finnan haddie and Welsh rarebit, followed by a dry Gibson and a long nap — an experiment in what one friend calls gout-stool cuisine. 6667 Hollywood Blvd., Hlywd., (323) 467-7788. Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Full bar. Validated parking in rear. AE, DC, MC, V.

The Nickel
The motto of the Nickel Diner is probably Home of the Maple Glaze Bacon Donut, a slogan inscribed both on the home page of its Web site and in the arteries of its best customers. And that doughnut is a lovely thing, paved with crushed bacon and glistening with what Dr. Dean Ornish might interpret as pure evil. Like Huckleberry in Santa Monica, the Nickel is a precise reflection of its neighborhood and time, a restaurant whose particulars are almost shorthand for the state of Main Street in 2009: untouched 1950s wall mural; floor lamps glued to the ceiling; and a menu of hash-house favorites: the pancakes and fried eggs and overcooked bacon without which there would be rebellion in the streets. But the toast, including the cinnamon-dusted Nickel Bag, is made with bread baked in-house — baker Sharlena Fong once cooked at the likes of Bouchon and Per Se — and the hash is made with spicy pulled pork shoulder instead of canned corned beef. Are there candied pecans in the chicken salad, quinoa in the salmon salad, arugula in the BLT, and roasted tomatoes in the macaroni and cheese? Guilty as charged. If you’re looking for Bukowski’s version of Fifth and Main, you’ll have to walk a block to the King Eddy. But if you’re around at supper, stop by the Nickel first. The stack of fried catfish with corn pancakes and pecans is worth the trip. 524 S. Main St., dwntwn., (213) 623-8301, 5cdiner.com. Tues.-Sun., 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Tues.-Sat., 6-11 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Street parking only (or nearby paid lot). MC, V.