It's The Summer Of Spritzes, Patios And Pasta In Los Angeles

Forbes

24-07-2025

Spritzes at Hotel Bel-Air are made with fresh local fruit.
If you go to the right places, summer in Los Angeles can feel a lot like a European vacation. You know the setting and the feeling. You sit outside on a beautiful patio while you people-watch. You drink spritzes and eat pasta before indulging in dessert and coffee. You linger because this is what you do in situations like this. It's all about, as the Italians say, the sweetness of doing nothing.
You have through August 2 to soak up this kind of scene at Angelini Grill, a terrific pop-up at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel. The Peninsula likes to use its Belvedere brasserie for pop-ups, and we've previously enjoyed both Sushi Nakazawa and Camphor's appearances there. Angelini Grill, helmed by L.A. icon Gino Angelini and Angelini Osteria executive chef Gianpiero Ceppaglia, is serving excellent shrimp and calamari spiedini, standout pastas like linguine with Santa Barbara sea urchin and baller main dishes like Roman-style Dover sole and veal chop Milanese.
This is Angelini, so there's also lasagna verde with a hearty beef ragu and tonnarelli allo scoglio that's loaded with lobster, shrimp, mussels, clams and calamari. You can also eat vitello tonnato (like every chef who was in Turin for the World's 50 Best Restaurants events this summer) at Angelini Grill. Gino Angelini, who has his own grocery-store line and mentored chefs like Ori Menashe, continues to be an ace at creating transportive experiences. Sit outside at the Belvedere with a cocktail and you might feel like you're in Positano.
The Belvedere at the Peninsula Beverly Hills is a lovely setting for pop-ups like Angelini Grill.
Another luxury Los Angeles destination, Hotel Bel-Air, also has the European summer vibes going. With new culinary director Joe Garcia (who previously ran the kitchen at Manzke and Bicyclette after working at the French Laundry) at the helm, what's simply known as the Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air is a lovely summer getaway. You can eat perfectly composed Niçoise salads and comforting tortilla soup (a beloved dish at Hotel Bel-Air that Garcia knows he can't ever take off the menu) as part of long lunches that also include beautiful summer pastas like sweet corn agnolotti with butter-poached Maine lobster.
Garcia is hyper-focused on finding top-tier ingredients. He speaks enthusiastically about procuring big hunks of tuna that allow him to serve thick pieces of raw fish that melt in your mouth. He goes to Tenerelli Orchards himself to get the best nectarines and peaches. The goal is gathering the best ingredients around you and letting them shine. This, of course, is a very European way to think about food.
Hotel Bel-Air is also showcasing its new garden spritz menu, which features ingredients like fresh strawberries and lemons, the latter of which are from the property's own trees. There's also a new pastry cart with treats from Hotel Bel-Air's on-site Patisserie for all your cream puff and croissant cravings.
Buzzy new Los Angeles restaurants like Alba and Beethoven Market are also dazzling guests with pasta-powered meals on their patios. Alba and Beethoven Market, in fact, are two of the hardest reservations in the city. Sometimes, all a lot of people want (especially when they're jealous of their friends who won't stop Instagramming from the Amalfi Coast and the French Riviera) is good spaghetti, properly made cocktails and a patio with a nice vibe. This is L.A. summer for those who don't use 'summer' as a verb.