Posts by Richard Foss
Café Pierre: la fin d’une époque in Manhattan Beach [RESTAURANT REVIEW]
I first visited Café Pierre thirty-five years ago, just after they had opened as a modest creperie with a friendly fellow named Guy explaining the unfamiliar dishes. The place was an anomaly in our not-very-cosmopolitan town then, an authentic bit of Europe, and adventurous diners streamed in. As the years went by it expanded and…
Read MoreTry this, Sir! L’Amande, in Torrance, is the French bakery of your dreams
I have been waiting for years for the South Bay to get a world class French bakery – not a place with croissants in the case next to red velvet cakes, cupcakes, and whatever else is trendy this week. I have dreamed of a haven where the baguettes and croissants are coming out of the…
Read MoreFood for thought
The Bizoumis family works together in their garden and in the community to benefit the children of the Center for Learning Unlimited The fruit was fully ripe, green Chardonnay grapes plump on the vines. As the sun sank toward the horizon, pickers walked the fields, some with practiced motions, others slow and hesitant. An observer…
Read MoreAbigaile: handcrafted goodness in Hermosa Beach
Some restaurant environments are so associated with certain cuisines that any variation is jarring. Consider Hermosa’s Abigaile, which some people insist on calling a gastropub. The rationale seems to be that since Abigaile is a beer-centric place and they’re not serving banger sausages and mushy peas, it fits that definition. When you walk through the…
Read MoreLemonade and Leafy Greens open in Manhattan, Baleen goes classic in Redondo, Chef Melba’s celebrates seven [RESTAURANTS]
An Interesting Coincidence… Two restaurants opened within a block of each other in downtown Manhattan Beach last week, both injecting new life into an old concept. That mode of dining is the cafeteria– the first one opened in Los Angeles in 1905, and by 1920 there were over fifty in the region. Nothing those places…
Read MoreEast (coast) meets West at Hamptons [RESTAURANT REVIEW]
An outpost of East Coast resort style cuisine arrives in Manhattan Beach Let me describe a place to you – a string of small towns with an upscale lifestyle and beachy atmosphere, but close to a major business and financial center. Numerous films have been shot there (and written, because there’s a literary and artistic…
Read MoreThe Good Life: Chef Mario Martinoli brings Roman cuisine back to the South Bay
“French cuisine is all about technique. Italian is about ingredients.” – Dolce Vita chef Mario Martinoli
Read MoreEstablishment gets down to business in Hermosa Beach [RESTAURANT REVIEW]
There are restaurants in New York City, Hollywood, and other bastions of hipness that make a point of their diffident attitude toward customers. This includes having no signage, phone, or other identifying marks – the idea is to convey that that they are so secure about being found by the cognoscenti that they need not…
Read MoreIzaka-ya by Katsu-ya in Manhattan Beach: victory by any other name [RESTAURANT REVIEW]
I was chatting with a friend who speaks Japanese and asked her the meaning of the word Katsuya. Her language is rich in homophones – depending on the characters with which the word is written, there are no less than 107 different meanings. Her son Katsu’s name translates as “Victory” but there are other meanings…
Read MoreSecond coming for Second City: the resurgence of a signature El Segundo restaurant
Restaurants are volatile things, and when one manages to remain both consistent and creative it is a marvel. The loss of a pivotal staff member, or worse, burnout on the part of someone who stays, can destroy the delicate balance. Restaurants that start out aiming high often go down one of two roads; they retreat…
Read MoreA La Carte: Hamptons is here, celebrity chef now at Dolce Vita
The Easterners Are Invading!… Meanwhile in Manhattan Beach, a restaurant has opened serving a cuisine many people here have never heard of. America’s regional food is not as well marketed as offerings from very distant climes, and Hamptons is brave to theme their restaurant around New England seafood. (Note that this restaurant is not named…
Read MoreMama Terano: ‘Miraculously good’ Italian cooking [RESTAURANT REVIEW]
The photo of Mama Terano is a bit faded, and diners might wonder why the owner of a popular restaurant didn’t have a better one to hang on the wall. The clue is on the frame – the elderly Italian woman smiled for the camera in 1960, and didn’t live to see the restaurant with…
Read MoreBAD Sushi as wild as they come
There are some restaurants serving food that demands a new vocabulary – items superficially similar to some traditional cuisine or category, but with enough differences that a new nomenclature is called for. Perhaps the most tortured term is sushi, which you may know is the Japanese word for “sour taste,” a reference to an ancient…
Read MoreBeach Pizza sticks with winning formula
There will always be a place in the world for restaurants that do a few things very well. In and Out Burgers has proven this on a grand scale with a menu that could be written on a thumbnail by anyone with neat handwriting, and innumerable pizza joints have proved it on a local level.…
Read MoreChef Mohammed’s house of surprises: House of Pita fuses Arabic and Moroccan food with delicious results
Arabic food has entered the American mainstream, so when you see a place called House of Pita, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Redondo’s newest Arabic restaurant confounds those expectations. Sure enough, favorites like hummus, tabouli, and kebabs are here, but the flavors are subtly different, and the specialty of the…
Read MoreLuna Rossa’s traditional fare shows promise
In some of my columns I have lamented the quality of service in the South Bay. I have encountered waiters who didn’t know anything about the food they were serving, and who seemed puzzled that someone thought they ought to learn. When a diner asks for a recommendation and is told that “everything is good,”…
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