Terra, Eataly’s sizable rooftop eatery, to open
From a new rooftop restaurant at Eataly to a gin bar in Westlake, here’s what’s happening in the Los Angeles food-and-drink world:
View from the top: The team behind Eataly, the massive Italian marketplace that includes various restaurants and a market at the Westfield Century City mall, have been touting a rooftop restaurant and bar since it opened last November. Terra, that 11,000 square-foot restaurant, opens Thursday with an indoor and outdoor dining area and lounge, communal tables, a fire pit, garden and an olive tree. A private dining room is scheduled to open in June. The name Terra means earth in Italian. Executive chef Eli Anderson and chef de cuisine Matthew Smith plan to highlight the restaurant’s wood-burning Italian grill with a menu that includes Italian skewers, called arrosticini, whole grilled vegetables and rotisserie dishes. The bar program will make use of herbs and vegetables grown in the restaurant’s garden, and focus on gin and tonics, with gins from the U.S., Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the Philippines. 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 310-8000, www.eataly.com/ us_en/stores/los-angeles.
Croft Alley: The Croft Alley,
located behind the Alfred Coffee on Melrose Place, has been a favorite neighborhood stop for grilledcheese sandwiches and chlorophyll yogurt since it opened in 2014. The restaurant is opening a second location, in the former Alma space at the Standard hotel in West Hollywood, on March 26. The new Croft Alley will offer an expanded menu from chef Phuong Tran that includes shakshouka, salads and grain bowls, sandwiches and larger entrees such as schnitzel. 8300 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 650-9090, www.croftalley .com.
Fresh bagels: Frustrated with the state of bagels in Los Angeles, television show developer Zachary Liporace decided to make his own. He started Pop’s Bagels, a company that bakes fresh bagels at your home or events, last year. “The bagel sitch is dire here,” Liporace told us recently. He doesn’t have a dedicated space for the bagels, but he just started popping up at Smorgasburg, the Sunday market at Row DTLA. He’ll be there with his bagels through April 15, then back again during the month of May. Liporace makes three kinds of bagels: everything, plain and cinnamon raisin. He also makes his own butter, and buttermilk plain cream cheese with scallions, vegetables, strawberry or cinnamon sugar mixed in. Liporace travels with his oven, and bakes all of his bagels on-site, in small batches of 10. 785 Bay St., Los Angeles (parking lot and entrance off Alameda Street), www.popsbagelsla.com.
Queens of gin: Roselma Samala, Patricia Perez and Christine Sumiller, who call themselves the Red Capiz Partners, made the decision to open a bar in 2013. The three friends, who work in tech, finance and nonprofits, started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds a couple of years ago and have finally opened a bar in Westlake called Genever. The bar, which primarily focuses on gin, carries 24 different kinds of the spirit, including the bar’s namesake, Genever. Highlights from bar program director Kelso Norris’ menu include the Diamonds and Pearls, made with green tea-infused gin, coconut, pandan, calamansi, sago (palm starch) and matcha powder; and the Vice Versa, made with Dorothy Parker gin, strawberry and pink peppercorn shrub, hibiscus syrup and egg white. Also worth noting is the origin of the bar aprons, which were made in the Philippines by ANTHILL, an organization that promotes Philippine hand-woven fabrics. And if you contributed to the Kickstarter campaign, you’ll want to look for your name on the mural in the bar. 3123 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, www.geneverla.com.
Out for delivery: It’s been difficult to get a reservation at Pizzana in Brentwood since chef Daniele Uditi opened the pizzeria last spring, and there are routinely lines outside the door. In our restaurant critic Jonathan Gold’s review, he called the cacio e pepe pizza a “small miracle.” If you’re a fan, you’ll be happy to learn that the pizzeria has introduced takeout and delivery via the ChowNow app. You can order pizzas that are ready-to-eat or pies that are heatand-slice, requiring two minutes in a hot oven before digging in. You can also order antipasti, salads and dessert from pastry chef Candace Nelson, who created Sprinkles cupcakes. 11712 San Vicente Blvd., L.A., (310) 481-7108, pizzana.com.