Giorgio Baldi

Giorgio Baldi, from Forte dei Marmi on the Tuscan coast, opened his trattoria on West Channel Road in 1990, a block from the beach where Santa Monica turns into the Palisades. The Los Angeles Times was writing about it as a family affair by 1995. His daughter Elena manages it now.

It has become one of the city's great celebrity hideaways, which the family insists it never set out to be. 'We don't promote that environment,' Elena Baldi told The New York Times. 'I've sat people, big people, at really crappy tables'. The room is small and dim, with turquoise walls and the sound of the open kitchen; the only sign is a discreet 'gb' over the door.

The room is small and dim, with turquoise walls and the sound of the open kitchen; the only sign is a discreet 'gb' over the door.

Order pasta, in more than one direction. The agnolotti filled with sweet white corn in a white truffle sauce is the most famous plate on the menu. The ricotta and asparagus ravioli, the gnocchi with meat sauce or Gorgonzola, and a spaghetti pomodoro that is no longer printed but still made on request are the order of its most loyal regular. Portions are modest and prices are not.

Reservations are by phone. It is the restaurant that people who could go anywhere keep going back to, three times a week in one well-documented case.

Text to ask.