Mario MARINO - Adventures in Eating - Part 2 - LUNCH!

MARINO on Melrose is bang in the center of a renaissance in the south Hollywood - Larchmont - Hancock Park area.

There are 3 major condo projects going up between Highland and Wilcox Avenue. There are  dozens of independent film, sound and digital companies in the neighborhood, and Paramount Studios and Raleigh Studios, and a farmer's market on Sunday.

There is Larchmont Boulevard with it's spas and banks and restaurants and retail stores, and there is the beacon  - THE EL ROYALE - the 1927 Los Angeles Icon by architect William Douglas Lee that lights up each night at dusk in green neon script and can be seen from every direction.

Downtown is booming and east of La Brea has it's gold stars: MARINO - It's a great place to have lunch in a quiet setting with delicious food.

This cod swims from the cold Norwegian waters all the way to MARINO'S L.A. table.  But you knew that, I told you in part 1, now I'm busy eating.

 Linguine Pescatore


Mario sources the line caught cold water fish, the grass fed meat and the fresh organic vegetables. Carmelo at Pane Pane delivers the bread as he has for 29 years, and I let Mario choose the wine because he knows so much about it.

Listed on Eater & Yelp & Zagat rated at 25 food and called "a local treasure."

The down side? Never on Sunday.


MARINO - Reservations  323-466-8812

http://www.marinorestaurant.net/index.php

Food as ART, Campanile Restaurant

 Campanile, still as good as it gets.
Located in a sunlit Italian-style building built for Charlie Chaplin in the 1920's, it is a Hollywood landmark. Chef Mark Peel is right there watching over things, creating remarkable and innovative dishes. The lights are on and he is home.
From the bibb lettuce salad to the prime rib, which of course I cannot eat because the cholesterol is waaaaaay out there, so I eat the sauteed trenne with bolognese sauce & peacock kale & shaved parmesan. A bottle of red wine, of course. Dessert? Flourless chocolate cake, can't eat that either, but I do, I have to live. Ok, so when I die and go to the heaven that is MY heaven, I want to go to Claridge's, and eat the food that is from Campanile......AND Gino, and sleep on Anichini linens, and read the great fiction of the world, beginning with Proust, makes sense, I'm in bed, and it's MY heaven. Turner Classic Movies has to be on the flat screen with Bette Davis or Humphrey Bogart which I watch in my pegnoir set. Ah, heaven.