WHY It’s one of best fine-dining seafood restaurants in the United States. Okay, maybe it is the best.

WHAT Michael Cimarusti’s seafood dishes are constructed as carefully as paintings, and they’re as delicious to eat as they are to gaze upon. He’s been cooking in this serene and appropriately elegant space for so long and so well that it’s almost forgotten that Patina lived here. All the details—service, wine, tableware—are seamlessly tended to so diners can feel as important as they think they are, or actually are. Every dish is worthwhile, even if it’s not seafood—the foie gras a la plancha, for instance, is divine, and the cheese selection is among L.A.’s finest.

WHO Expensively dressed captains of industry and food lovers (chefs, journalists, aficionados) from around the country, checking it out while they’re in town.