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Summer calls for grilling, gathering with family and friends while the kids take cannonballs in the pool or just running under the sun, playing ball in the park. Hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, and steak are all in heavy rotation, whether they’re to savor or completely devour. These indelible scenes are synonymous with summer, but sometimes, it’s easier to just let restaurants handle the prep, grilling, and clean-up. Learn about 10 of the best places to enjoy grilled birds, fish, meat and vegetables in Los Angeles, and which plates to order.
Elena’s Greek-Armenian Cuisine Quail
Since 1976, Elena Petikyan and her family have served stupendous Armenian comfort food on a sleepy stretch of Glendale. Consistency is key at Elena’s Greek-Armenian Cuisine, where the menu stays constant and affordable. The low-key space is surprisingly provocative thanks to a mural that depicts a nude woman atop a bull, surrounded by dolphins. Regardless of the meat, customers can expect scintillating results thanks to simple seasoning and the proper time cooking atop charcoal in a gas-powered grill. Skewers of lamb shish, ground beef lule and pork chops are all delectable, but quail ($9.99) is particularly impressive. A pair of bone-in California state birds are splayed and served with complementary accompaniments like rice flavored with chicken stock, roasted pepper and tomato, a pile of parsley and onion, punchy pink pickled cabbage, carrot, turnip and celery, and a choice of either basic salad or beautifully tangy lentil soup.
Hatchet Hall Pork Chop
Hatchet Hall, the “rustic, wood-fired American” restaurant from chef Brian Dunsmoor, front of house counterpart Jonathan Strader, and business partners Louie Ryan and Netty Ryan, takes an aggressive approach in Culver City, starting with the name. Hatchet Hall refers to the dwelling for Carrie Nation, a long-gone Southerner who wielded a hatchet in violent fits against alcohol and the people who sold it. The team certainly brings a renegade spirit to the restaurant. Dunsmoor’s cooking melds Southern influences with seasonal California ingredients and has a massive wood grill at his disposal that burns white oak that imparts a wonderfully smoky quality. The restaurant’s Mushroom Crusted ($35) stars standout pork sourced from Peads & Barnetts founder Oliver Woolley, who raises woolly, fat-rich Mangalitsa pigs. This bone-in, umami-rich chop sports a considerable fat cap and a winning sear. Accompaniments change from time to time, but at last check came with smoked lard, “wood herbs” like thyme, and squeezable grilled lemon.
Pacifique Chicken Tsukune
Pacifique is a recent addition to West Hollywood from Joel Herzer and partner-designer Sean Leffers, who installed a covered plant-lined patio, two big globe lanterns, and wallpaper depicting a Japanese woman with flowers in her hair. The trio hired chef de cuisine Danielle Sobel to install a modern Cal-Japanese menu. Chicken Tsukune ($17) is a particularly compelling dish featuring five juicy poultry patties plated on cured egg yolk with house-cured duck prosciutto, crispy quinoa, and vibrant frisée salad dressed with miso vinaigrette and blood orange.
Ronan Chicken
Former Sotto manager Caitlin Cutler and chef/husband Daniel Cutler opened Ronan on Melrose, overdelivering on their vision for a family-run pizzeria. The indoor-outdoor space sports a graffiti mural and houses an open kitchen with a white Neapolitan oven that burns white oak and fuels an ambitious rotating menu. A number of restaurants serve great rotisserie chickens – set it and (almost) forget it – but the Cutlers manage to make their chicken sing on a wood grill. Ronan’s ½ Chicken ($33) isn’t always on the menu, but is a must-order. The preparation is bound to change with the seasons, but when I ordered Ronan’s bird, it came coated with piquant olive-pistachio pesto and plated with wild arugula draped with squash blossoms.
Rossoblu Santa Barbara Spot Prawns
Rossoblu is an ambitious passion project from chef Steve Samson and wife-partner Dina, an industrial, but inviting Fashion District homage to his mother’s family heritage in Bologna. The split-level restaurant in an emerging development called City Market South revolves around an open kitchen with a wood-burning hearth that feeds on almond wood. Anything these grates touch benefit greatly, whether it’s suckling pig or a juicy steak. I was particularly enamored by their seasonal Santa Barbara Spot Prawns ($14 each) served head on and dressed with bread crumbs, parsley, and Romagnola olive oil. Better yet, these sweet, butterflied beauties arrived with big clumps of bright red roe between their meats and shells, and if you’re lucky, still more roe on top sautéed with lemon juice and olive oil.
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