Luxury Life & Style - (Page 80)

Darren's Restaurant delicious diversions by Darren’s Does It Right At this point in my dining career, it often feels more like career than dining. I know, I know – it’s nice work if you can get it, getting paid to eat out and all. But for those of us whose Happy Hours were always someone else’s and who sadly worked eleven New Years’ Eves in a row, simply being home at night is the best entertainment. It IS work to slick on some lipstick and feign excitement about the latest trendy restaurant when one could stay home, eat microwave popcorn for dinner and catch up on a decade’s worth of Law & Order episodes. (That Benjamin Bratt is a little too popular at our house for Mr. Sexton’s comfort.) Thus, while I wouldn’t say I am jaded, it does take something beyond a well-made, postprandial cappuccino to get me jazzed these days. When I heard that Avenue, a restaurant in Manhattan Beach I reviewed some time ago, had changed ownership, I knew I needed to Bonnie Graves check it out yet felt lethargic about doing so. And isn’t there something eerie about restaurant concepts haunting their successors in the same space? Such spots sometimes seem as if they need a culinary séance to reconcile the ghosts of Sushi Past with the subsequent Tex-Mex residents. Anyhow, I assumed that Darren’s might be one of those timidly aspirational South Bay finedining restaurants in which “reach” dishes like veal cheeks and pork belly sit uncomfortably next to 1/2-pound burgers and obligatory Buffalo wings with bleu cheese sauce. Sure, the location is great so what restaurateur wouldn’t have wanted to take a crack at opening in Avenue’s old stomping grounds? But would it be worth missing my date with ADA Jack McCoy? Such were my thoughts as I wrastled our daughter into the new “Big Girl” car seat whose installation nearly brought my spouse and I to the brink of divorce. I was crabby. Things didn’t improve as the traffic gods intervened to make us forty-five minutes late for our reservation on a busy Saturday night. In a tiny dining room like Darren’s, which seats maybe forty, late rezzies and no-shows immediately and directly impact a restaurant’s financial feasibility. (Feel free to blow off your reservation at Applebee’s, but don’t do it to places like Darren’s.) I mention this because we were immediately and graciously seated despite being ridiculously late. Musical high chair hijinks ensued and were handled warmly and promptly. It turned out that the Petite Gourmande was as crabby as her momma, unusual for us both, but no one made us feel as if her fussing and pelting bystanders with Cheerios mattered in the least. My in-laws had joined us for dinner, and each time one of we four adults took a tour of duty to walk Baby outside, the door was opened with a smile. Chairs were pulled out, napkins refolded, food kept warm in the kitchen. I was simply astonished to find this degree of service. What was the magic 80 Luxury Life & Style March/April 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Luxury Life & Style

Editor's Letter
Carte Blanche
Home
The Arts
Seen in the South Bay
People
Drive
Fashion
Seen in the South Bay
Travel
The Cellar
Dine
Vacation Properties
Coda

Luxury Life & Style

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