RSS FeedSmeraldi’s At Millennium Biltmore LA
This is a posting about a fantastic meal at one of my favorite hotels – made even better by two new friends going the extra mile in an Italian restaurant that is and isn’t Italian.
LOS
My favorite hotel here is the Biltmore, now the Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles. It’s a throw-back to the 1930s when LA was becoming LA. If you pause for a moment you can hear the echoes of silent film starlets and Raymond Chandler throwing down a few.
I had spent time here in the 1990s while seeing shows or operas on weekends away from
On this Sunday night as I prepared for the Monday conference with BNY Mellon, I decided to get a quick dinner. When the Asian restaurant Saisai was closed, I was fortunate enough to find the Italian restaurant Smeraldi’s.
What a find in many ways.
My first good fortune was to get Tom Chavez as my waiter. “What’s the best on the menu?” I asked. He didn’t disappoint.
I had the Cocktail Mediterranean which was a scrumptious medley of fresh oysters, shrimp, crab cloves, ahi tuna, and Norwegian Salmon. I highly recommend it as an appetizer.
The entrée was North American Halibut sautéed in Swiss chard, braised baby fennel, couscous, and tear drop tomato relish. It was heaven and healthy. It blended perfectly with my reading of asset management, trusts, working capital solutions, derivatives, and private equity. Seriously, I had to concentrate on my reading; that’s how good it was.
The dinner cost about $80 with tip and a glass of Jordan Chardonnay.
Of course after dinner, I had to have some fun. That means “breaking balls”. Understand that the creator of “breaking balls” — while making friends — was my Dad, John F. Daly. Pops could get away with saying almost anything that might be construed as offensive, yet the target of his barbs knew instantly that Pops was only making friendly.
However, my good buddy Jack “Jake The Weasel” McCarty has taken “ball busting” to nuclear heights. Jack became good buddies with a Japanese tourist even though he told this Japanese gentleman that Curtis Lemay had somehow missed him during the bombings in 1945. That’s right. Jake The Weasel could joke about the worst atomic attack in the history to a Japanese man – and they still had fun together.
Granted, this Japanese gentleman had the ball busting gift too. When he found out Jack was from the
My ball busting is tamer, more sophisticated (I like to think), and safer. So I brought out my usual repertoire for an Italian restaurant. I told Tom the waiter “if this is really an Italian restaurant, then you will have Strega.”
Strega is an Italian liqueur similar to Sambuca with the yellow tint of Galliano. I feasted on it as a student in
So, I knew I had clearly stumped Tom the waiter adding the coup de grace (don’t know the Italian equivalent), “Then you can’t call this place an Italian restaurant.”
Tom was not done, though. He noticed Jaime Gallardo, the bartender, in the restaurant talking to the attractive hostess. “He’ll know.”
After catching Tom’s eye, Jaime (pronounced Hi-may) walked to my table with urgency to hear my dim-witted diatribe about Strega. “So you’re really not an Italian restaurant,” I concluded again.
“Well, sir,” Jaime responded seriously, “It’s not an Italian restaurant. The name is only Italian.” Then he smiled.
Not only had I met my match, but he trumped me. What a pleasure to ball-bust a ball-buster. Then Jaime disappeared.
Five minutes later, Tom arrived with a gift from Jaime, a snifter of … you guessed it … Strega. Perfect.
“I thought we had some in the main bar,” Jaime later told me when I tracked him down to thank him. We spoke for a while and he told me he was heading to Mexico City for four weeks vacation to see his mother and his new grandchild.
So truly Smeraldi’s is an Italian restaurant. But it has nothing to do with the great food. Sure, the food has Italian style, but it’s
Besides Smeraldi’s at The Biltmore LA, there is plenty of stuff to do in LA. Call my gal Vicki, a virtuoso travel agent, at (972) 243-9704 for an American vacation in SoCal.
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