Diners

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Upon entering the Ivy restaurant sporting a T-shirt and leather jacket, actor Danny DeVito acknowledges the fawning looks and demure hellos of fellow patrons and quickly dispatches the server to bring him a special order for the table: an egg-white omelet with slightly browned shallots, just a little olive oil, and no salt.

“Movie stars can never order straight from the menu,” someone at the table comments. “They have to think of something they have to have that isn’t on the menu.”

That wasn’t the real Danny DeVito he was just portraying an outrageous Hollywood type in 1995’s “Get Shorty.” But that scene of show business and celebrity strikes a familiar chord among many L.A. restaurant watchers.

“You have to offer something more than just great food here,” said David Shaw, media critic for the Los Angeles Times and a food and wine connoisseur. “Just great food won’t do it. You have to have some zip, some pizzazz, some buzz, some show, some something.”

Comparing Los Angeles restaurant patrons to those in New York, restaurant critic Alan Richman summed it up this way in last October’s GQ magazine: “New Yorkers pay attention to their food so they can lecture others on it, whereas Angelenos taste the first bite and start looking around the room.”

That may be news to many Angelenos simply looking for good food and attentive service. Still, there are some characteristics about local restaurant goers that ring true, according to critics and restaurateurs alike.

First and foremost, they’re looking for a good deal.

According to the latest figures from Zagat Survey, the average cost of a meal at the 20 most expensive restaurants in L.A. is $48.69. By comparison, New Yorkers pay $69.33 per person, while diners in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington pay more than $50 per person.

“The restaurants that really seem to thrive out here are the ones with the moderate prices where people really perceive value. Generally speaking, people (in L.A.) don’t like to spend a lot of money on food,” said Janice Wald Henderson, restaurant critic for Valley magazine and a frequent contributor to Bon Appetit.

Some have suggested that this includes tipping that Angelenos tend to be, well, cheaper than restaurant-goers in other cities. A nationwide survey of tipping several years ago placed L.A. well down on the list, although reliable numbers are hard to come by.

“I have to wonder how accurate the surveys are. If it is true, I have no explanation,”

said Merrill Shindler, co-editor of the Zagat Survey.

However, there is no question that beyond price, Angelenos want to feel welcome even to the point of an owner greeting frequent customers with a hug or a kiss.

L.A. Times restaurant critic Irene Virbila notes that “more than trying new restaurants all the time, (Angelenos) want to find a restaurant where they feel comfortable and where they are greeted with great warmth. That’s part of the ritual of going to dinner and showing your friends that you know the chef.”

Ellen Harrington, special events coordinator for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said the warm greetings she receives from Spago owner/chef Wolfgang Puck make a difference.

“It makes you feel more important, and not like just cash in the (restaurateur’s) register,” she said.

Among those well known for their personal attention to guests is Italian-born Piero Selvaggio, owner of Valentino in Santa Monica. “Personal service is what people remember at the end of a restaurant experience,” Selvaggio said. “No matter how memorable the food is, most people don’t understand the intricacy of the chef’s creation, but they will remember the personal attention.”

But don’t ask them to wear a jacket and tie. Even by the current standards of casual attire, Angelenos are constantly pushing the envelope including at the most exclusive eateries. Jeans, T-shirts, sandals “It’s just whatever you happen to be wearing,” Shindler said.

Then there’s the food itself. For all of L.A.’s diversity as a food capital, Angelenos, as a rule, are more often looking for the familiar rather than the exotic a source of frustration for some of L.A.’s more adventurous chefs.

“You have much more trouble selling people certain kinds of dishes here,” says Shaw. “Chefs will tell you that they try to serve tripe and various kinds of sauces, dishes such as innards and various things that some people regard as fattening or ‘yucky.’ They have much more trouble selling that here than they do in places like New York or Washington or San Francisco.”

Shaw pointed to chef Gino Angelini at Vincenti in Brentwood, which opened recently and whose “original menu was absolutely fascinating, with all kinds of unusual dishes. But people weren’t going to buy them, so he had to go to a more traditional menu.”

Such unadventurous eating may help explain another local characteristic: early dining. Whereas in New York, the peak dinner crowd arrives at 8:30 or 9 p.m., in Los Angeles it’s between 7 and 7:30. “Nobody wants a reservation at 9 o’clock,” says Henderson.

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