Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants

* Church & State
When we are in a carnivorous mood, we sometimes daydream about Church & State, about wood-baked flatbread with Époisses and poached duck tongues, Santa Barbara spot prawns buried in drifts of finely diced cucumber, and giant, sizzling marrowbones, naked and split in two. Pig’s-foot fritters. Rabbit terrine. Pork belly with fresh peas. Garlicky snails baked under little caps of puff pastry. French fries seethed in pure lard. The whole, whirling carnival of meat. You may have been to Church & State in its earliest days, as a rough-edged artists’ brasserie built into a loading dock deep, deep downtown, music turned up high and lights turned down low; its most interesting features were the cocktails made by its weekend bartender, Michel Dozois. But when Walter Manzke took over the kitchen, fresh from a stint as the chef at Bastide, he transformed the dullish menu into a document guaranteed to dampen the eyes of even the steeliest gourmet. What the restaurant may remind you of is one of the bistros born from the ’90s recession in Paris, slightly grungy places opened by young chefs who had worked in the city’s grandest hotel restaurants, and who transformed simple dishes through hard-won haute-cuisine technique. Manzke shares some of their preoccupations: a fondness for pig parts; fetishes for farmers-market produce and for detail; and the adoption of technology when it suits his purposes. Is this the most refined bistro cooking in Los Angeles? Look at it this way: Manzke can make pig’s ears taste better than fries. 1850 Industrial St., L.A., (213) 405-1434, churchandstatebistro.com. Lunch Tues.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Tues.-Thurs., Fri.-Sat., 6-11 p.m. Full bar. AE, MC, V.

Ciudad
It has never been easier to find a mojito downtown, a cunningly stuffed empanada, or an unconventional tamale. But there is still Ciudad, the pan-Latin outpost of Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, which may be all things to all people but especially to all people whose pleasures include upending an oyster or two, digging into a ceviche plate and bending an elbow every now and then: There are strong mojitos, mellow Pisco sours and an inspiring collection of rum to go along with the Bolivian-style tamales, Caribbean paella and a classic pescado Veracruzana, the Bahia-style moqueqas and a fritanga that would knock them silly in Managua. Daytime is for office workers; at night, two-thirds of the customers are dressed in black. 445 S. Figueroa St., dwntwn., (213) 486-5171. Mon.-Tues., 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Wed.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri., 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Sat., 5-11 p.m., Sun., 5-9 p.m. Full bar. Takeout. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V.

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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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Comme Ça
David Myers’ brasserie is a few degrees off-kilter, and I think the chef likes it that way — a sleek, theatrically lit restaurant lined with mirrors, halls lined with chalkboards, tables filled with smartly dressed citizens of the local design community. Sona, Myers’ other restaurant, is a serene bubble of luxury and refinement; Comme Ça is loud, young and cocktail-driven, bubbling with oysters and steak tartare, choucroute garni on Wednesdays and braised pork belly on Saturdays. Comme Ça is open early for croissants and coffee and late for mussels and champagne, serving both formal entrées and bistro classics. Is there good onion soup? A great one, informed but not overwhelmed by its gooey mantle of melted Gruyère. And the cheeseburger, made from the chef’s mom’s recipe and served only at lunchtime unless you have the pull of Jack Nicholson, is one of the very best in town. 8479 Melrose Ave., W. Hlywd., (323) 782-1178, commecarestaurant.com. Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Fri., 11 a.m.-mid., Sat., 9 a.m.-mid., Sun., 9 a.m.-11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V.

Cora’s Coffee Shoppe
Cora’s reign as a ratty surf dive may be long forgotten by this point, but the desire for a decent cappuccino is eternal. Sometimes what you need on a weekend morning is Cora’s straight shot of L.A. fantasy: a patio shaded with crimson bougainvillea, a burbling Tuscan fountain, the distant crashing of the surf — sometimes you want a chef’s salad, and sometimes you want an omelet made with farmers-market tomatoes and oozingly creamy burrata cheese; sometimes you need ham ’n’ eggs the morning after, and sometimes delicate petals of San Daniele prosciutto. Cora’s hamburgers are magnificent, almost-molten objects fashioned from coarsely chopped, beyond-prime Wagyu cow. And if you are luckier than I have been lately, there will be an intense homemade burnt-caramel ice cream as bitter as tears. 1802 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 451-9562. Mon.-Sun., 7 a.m.-3 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, MC, V.

Cut
Cut is a study in contradictions, a restaurant whose stark Richard Meier interior suggests less a dining room than a museum of contemporary art, a steak house whose strengths lie in its warm veal-tongue salad and bone-marrow flan rather than in its prime Nebraska beef; in its potato “tarte tatin’’ rather than cottage fries; its marvelous Austrian reds rather than its California cabs. It’s Wolfgang Puck’s most glamorous restaurant — does Tom Cruise ever eat anywhere else? — but its sensibilities mirror those of Lee Hefter, filtered through Ari Rosenson. There is the matter of the first-quality Japanese beef, wrapped in ninja-black cloth and carried around by the beef sommelier. And if you haven’t been wiped out by Bernie Madoff, you will discover a miracle unduplicated in the world of meat, richness upon richness, all possible permutations of smoke and char and animal, dancing across your consciousness like sunlight rippling on a pond. A small, Japanese rib eye runs more than $150, but as a shared appetizer, it will easily feed four. 9500 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 276-8500. 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.