Heavens

Sort of near the beach. We will be staying in Venice. Taking 18 year old daughter. Thought it might be fun to go one night (of our two) to a unique LA experience. Spago's maybe? Mr. Chows (might be too much $$$)? Can you recommend some place that she might like not only the atmosphere, but menu. Not too, too gourmet, but good food, maybe a celebrity would be fun...Dolce Enoteca, Ashton Kucher's restaurant? Any ideas here?

enjoylife

The Ivy on Robertson is the place the stars and the paparazzi frequent. The food is pretty good too.

laurelt

We just ate at Dolce last week (see my trip report) and really liked it. If you make a reservation, make it for late in the evening though. We went at 7:30 pm and the place was almost empty.

rjw_lgb_ca

There is an outpost of the Ivy up the road from you, Heavens. It's called Ivy at the Shore and it's right on Ocean (north of Colorado) in Santa Monica (your hotel is on Pacific in Venice, and its name changes up in SM). Just about the same celebrity quotient as the BH branch.

Dolce gets varied reviews (to be fair, they are mostly good reviews), but it gets the best notices of the celebrity-owned places in this area (Jennifer López' eatery, Madre's, gets righteous pans).

Spago's in BH, Chinois on Main in SM, maybe Schatzi's (Arnold's eatery-- supposedly it's improved since it opened)? I hear you can see celebs at Restaurant Hama in Venice, as well as Joe's and Amuse Café, but you can also just go there for the great food....

Jean

Or just hang out in the produce section of the Safeway's in Malibu!

Heavens

Jean, we were at the AM/PM store one morning checking OD into a leadership camp and ran into Gary Busy. No mistaking him. Haven't really run into too many celebs while hanging around in LA. We often went to Spagos when it was on Sunset. Well, not often, a few times, and always saw somebody there. But we really went for the food. It is the best.