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View from the upstairs bar at Fig & Olive

A week ago (I know, I know — I’m behind!), the New York-based, olive oil-centric restaurant Fig & Olive opened its flagship West Coast location at the trendy corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Melrose Place. It was a scene, my friends: three nights of people in cocktail attire walking a red carpet complete with a step and repeat, as well as fashion presentations by Cholé and Fendi. All that for a restaurant opening!

To be fair, the restaurant is housed in a pretty awesome space: it’s huge, and features rosemary bushes and an olive tree in the main dining room. There’s even an upstairs space, which houses the Fig Champagne & Cocktail Bar, unique to the L.A. location.

Fig & Olive’s thing is olive oil, which it uses in place of butter in nearly all its dishes. You can even buy bottles of its special infused versions at the restaurant (blood orange-infused olive oil, anyone?). The cuisine is inspired by the Mediterranean, and that means the entire region, including France, Italy and Spain.

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Let me preface this post with this statement: This restaurant is in Marina del Rey. Unless you live in Marina del Rey or really close to it, you probably don’t frequent the area much. I know I don’t. But I may start now that Vu Restaurant has opened at the waterfront Jamaica Bay Inn, which just underwent an extensive makeover.

Vu (pronounced “view”), which just opened this month, turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me, despite some hiccups at the bar (make sure head mixologist Jolie Klein makes your drinks, and you’ll be golden). The food’s origins are all over the map, literally — there’s Asian, Italian and good old American, among others — and even some molecular gastronomy thrown in. A bit confusing, but somehow it works. Here are some of the highlights from my dinner there last week.

The pork belly sitting on a crispy cake of grits and topped with root beer gelée was my favorite bite of the night. As Lindsay William-Ross, editor of LAist, noted, the flavors were reminiscent of chicken and waffles. I liked this because the root beer wasn’t overpowering but lent just the right amount of subtle sweetness to complement the dish.

Pork belly on crispy grits topped with root beer gelée

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Eggplant caviar and smoked trout rillettes

Culver City just got a little cooler: Chef Benjamin Bailly, formerly of Petrossian in West Hollywood, has taken over the helm at Fraiche. And he has revamped the menu to blend French (he’s from France, natch) and Italian influences. Perhaps the best part, at least for me, is the reasonable prices for the high quality food: nothing is priced more than $28 on the dinner menu, with most items coming in under $20.

I recently had the pleasure of experiencing the dinner menu myself — along with Caroline of Caroline on Crack — at the invitation of Chef Bailly. Herewith, some of my favorites.

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