Wolfgang Puck at Hotel Bel-Air

Wolfgang Puck made his reputation here in the 1980s with a cooking that was irreversibly Californian — taking the techniques of his Austrian-French training and filling them with the produce of the Santa Monica Farmers Market, the seafood of the Pacific coast, and the influence of every immigrant kitchen LA had absorbed.

The restaurant stretches across a sequence of indoor and outdoor rooms, all softened by candlelight, old stone, and flowering jasmine. The menu is modern Californian with European clarity: wood-roasted fish with lemon and herbs; a truffle pizza from the wood-burning oven; a seasonal dessert trolley that arrives with the formality of a French finale.

The wine list is almost entirely Californian, which is exactly as it should be.