LA Weekly

Photos by Anne Fishbein

Los Angeles is a different kind of restaurant town, a city where the arty-looking guy across the room may actually be Dennis Hopper, where the presence of Ashton Kutcher may mean more than the presence of Wolfgang Puck behind the stoves, where it is possible to run into Wilmer Valderrama in so many restaurants on so many nights that you wonder where he finds the time to deflower underage starlets. Los Angeles may be less a restaurant scene than a rerun of That ’70s Show, a place where a dude, straining mightily to keep his eyes open as his date motors into her third hour of chakra-talk, can find that little bit of nirvana in his seared day-boat scallops with white-bean-shiitake ragout. As in the more visible bistros in London and Lower Manhattan, dinner out in Los Angeles can be more about surfing the groove of the evening than it is about the cooking, though what you eat is likely to be pretty good.

Still, Los Angeles may be the best place in the world to eat at the moment, a hive of creative chefs who have grown up with Thai food and Iranian food and sushi as their birthright, where you will find a checkerboard of immigrant communities large and self-contained enough to support their own Yellow Pages as well as their own restaurants, where the farmers-market produce is superb enough to inspire even the most blockheaded of cooks. Wine country? There are several to choose from within a few hours’ drive. Esoteric ingredients? Los Angeles is the country’s biggest port and, in some area codes, well-stocked Asian markets threaten to outnumber the regular kind.

In the mid-1980s, Los Angeles chefs were at the forefront of many things that the rest of the world now takes for granted — Asian fusion, designer pizza, urban rustic cuisine. But where there were a handful of truly wonderful restaurants in the region 25 years ago, today there may be hundreds. Or at least, I submit, 99.

A.O.C.

A wine bar, simply put, is a place you drop into for a glass of vino and maybe a bit of octopus, then a glass of Sancerre and a few grilled sardines, then a glass of Friulian Tocai and a plate of sliced prosciutto, then a glass of Corbières and the tiniest plate of skewered grilled lamb with mint. Until you spot the bacon-wrapped dates with Parmesan on the bar menu, which would go so nicely with one of those big southern Italian reds, or fixate on the idea of ripe Crozier blue with a late-bottled port, or try to figure out just what Suzanne Goin is going to put romesco sauce on next. You could drink and eat like this all night if A.O.C. didn’t unreasonably stop serving at 11. 8022 W. Third St., Los Angeles, (323) 653-6359. Mon.–Fri. 6–11 p.m., Sat. 5:30–11 p.m., Sun. 5:30–10 p.m. Beer and wine. Valet parking. AE, DC, MC, V. À la carte $6–$14. Mediterranean.

Al-Noor

Nehari is more or less the Pakistani national dish, an intense, mahogany concoction of lamb shanks flavored with garlic, chiles, and an immoderate amount of shredded fresh ginger. Nehari can sometimes be as genteel as a country French ragout, but the nehari at Al-Noor — also a respectable venue for Pakistani breads, spicy stews and smoky, tandoor-cooked meats — is simmered down to a steaming, creamy mass with the density of a dwarf star, bubbling and glistening with red-tinted oil, a stew substantial enough to fortify three hungry men after a day of hard labor. 15112 Inglewood Ave., Lawndale, (310) 675-4700. Tues.–Sun. 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Valet parking. D, MC, V. $12–$25. Indian.

Amuse Café

Amuse may consume more farmers-market produce per customer than any business on the Westside, but Brooke Williamson and Nick Roberts’ café is an ambitiously unambitious establishment, whose menu is composed mostly of small plates — lentil “hummus,” black rice with baby octopods, a deliciously funky onion and Gruyère tart, and wonderful drippy hamburgers made from chopped rib-eye steak. As in the early days of City Café, when Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger were also trying to figure out what it means to be a classically trained chef in a city that would rather eat big salads than quenelles de brochette, there is the feeling of experimentation, collaboration, fun — as if a good grilled chicken-and-Brie sandwich is no less worthy than a truffled fillet. Weekend brunches are a zoo, but the spare, sun-washed upstairs dining room (which often seems filled with trysting couples and Europeans on vacation) is a great place for a long, lubricious weekday lunch. Amuse, after a rigorously enforced, yearlong prohibition, finally has both evening hours and a license for wine and beer. 796 Main St., Venice, (310) 450-1956. Brunch Fri.–Sun. 9 a.m.–3 p.m., dinner Wed.–Sun. 5:30 p.m.–10 p.m. Closed for remodeling, but Williamson and Roberts’ culinary handiwork can be experienced in the meantime at Beechwood, 822 Washington Blvd., Venice, (310) 448-8884.

Angeli Caffe

Twenty years ago, Evan Kleiman’s caffe crystallized the affinity of Angelenos for casual Italian cooking — the spaghetti alla checca, roast chicken and minimally garnished pizza that a Sienese teenager might eat for dinner at the trattoria down the block on the nights his mother didn’t feel like turning on the stove, but which was essentially unobtainable to those of us on this side of the Atlantic. Its popularity may have inspired hundreds of restaurants featuring salads dressed with balsamic vinegar, but Angeli’s rustic simplicity is still the benchmark. And Evan Kleiman’s pastas are beyond remarkable. 7274 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 936-9086, www.angelicaffe.com. Lunch Tues.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Dinner Tues.–Sun. 5 p.m.–closing. Beer and wine. Takeout. Valet parking. Entréss $8.50–$24. AE, D, MC, V. Rustic Regional Italian.