French eatery is named LA’s best
MID-CITY Diners need not travel to the City of Lights to find some tasty French fare.
Upscale French-American restaurant Mélisse, located at 11th Street and Wilshire Boulevard, captured top honors in the 2008 Zagat survey released on Monday, earning the status of best restaurant in the Los Angeles/Southern California area.
The restaurant rating guide was compiled based on input from more than 8,800 frequent diners in the Los Angeles area, reviewing more than 2,100 restaurants.
The survey found that Santa Monicans have access to the best restaurants in Southern California, a tourist destination that also claims foodie favorite stalwarts such as The Hump, Josie and Michael’s Restaurant.
Los Angeles area restaurants — citing several from Santa Monica — were also honored by Forbes.com recently as being one of the top 10 foodie destinations in the world, named alongside cities such as Paris and New York City.
“It’s a hot neighborhood, it’s been a hot neighborhood,” said Michael Mahle, a spokesman for Zagat. “It’s got so many great restaurants in such a small area that you can’t go wrong, really. I think our surveyors believed that as well.”
Located in the heart of Mid-city, Mélisse is the culinary brainchild of Paris self-educated chef Josiah Citrin, who founded the restaurant in 1999 with his wife Diane. The Santa Monica High School graduate is also responsible for another Santa Monica French bistro — Jiraffe — which he opened with business partner Raphael Lunetta in 1996.
Mélisse is perhaps most unique for its cheese cart offering of more than 25 different varieties of cheeses. The cheese menu, which includes both international and domestic flavors, is crafted by a captain who, like a sommelier with a wine list, will assist his customers in selecting the right cheese.
The wine menu was designed by Brian Kallile, who started working at the restaurant as a bartender and moved to wine as he started learning more about the restaurant’s clientele. The 20-page wine menu is unique in that it includes many hidden gems produced by small vintners, said Lynda Atri, the events coordinator for Mélisse.
One of the restaurant’s specialties is the egg caviar, a multi-layer dish comprised of a poached egg, lemon-chive creme fraiche and an American Osetra Caviar.
“It’s amazing because there’s so much flavor that comes and you don’t expect it,” Atri said.
The restaurant has been honored by Zagat in the past, earning the best American-French restaurant in Los Angeles award for the past five years and the number one wine list for the past two years.
“The phones yesterday were ringing off the hook,” Atri said. “I’m not sure if it’s all (because of Zagat). A lot of our clientele are people who have been here already.”
But the dining experience at Mélisse, like many Santa Monica restaurants, does-n’t come cheap.
“It’s what Michael’s was 20 years ago, and Spago 10 years ago — the restaurant that defines fine dining, Los Angeles style, at the moment,” said Merrill Shindler, the Los Angeles senior editor for Zagat. “It’s actually a surprisingly casual restaurant, not a place where a tie and jacket are required, though it would be nice.”
The Westside of Los Angeles has long been a foodie favorite destination in Southern California, Shindler added, with a vibrant farmers’ market scene, ideal weather year-round and traffic that just doesn’t seem as dreadful as it is in the heart of Los Angeles.
“Santa Monica and the surrounding territories are food savvy, wine savvy and value savvy,” he said. “They know their olive oils and their cheeses.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 27, 2007. Read the original PDF.