Laurel Hardware Restaurant | Los Angeles

Laurel Hardware no longer trades in nails, tools and lumber, even if the sign above the entrance still intimates it does.

Contractors and home-improvement types have made way for the beautiful people of West Hollywood, who seem smitten with the expansive restaurant. Patrons drift from snacking on pizza at stools with a kitchen view to sipping glasses of Martian Vineyard's Grenache rosé at the bar in the back. And the restaurant continues to unfurl: There's a section of deep-set booths behind the bar, followed by a demurely lit backyard, the lights strung in the branches of two gnarled olive trees.

Mario Alberto, who did wonders at the short-lived Chimú, is the chef here, and although he has left that restaurant's Peruvian flavors far behind, there are some Chimú echoes. Pork belly is again served over barley ($14), with lovage oil subbing for huacatay sauce.  

Don't bother with the petite filet, the most expensive dish on the menu at $26. The more vegetable-intensive dishes, like a salad ($10) with a coarse sunflower-seed vinaigrette, or pizza with dandelion greens and fennel pollen ($16), are the best eating.

Laurel Hardware, 7984 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; 323-656-6070 or laurelhardware.com