Kismet

When you create a Brooklyn, LA mash up (in an unpretentious way) you get a place that oozes Scandinavian decor, the freshness of Californian produce, and a foundation of multi cultural, euro and middle eastern centric cuisines you find in New York. Or you get Kismet. I remember the first opening of the duo behind Kismet, the falafel stand Madcapra at Grandcentral Market which served some of the most delicious food at the market. Then came Kismet, and rare is a LA visit where I don’t have dinner there. It has become one of the few places in the city I regularly come back to. Partly it is because the staff is just wonderful and makes you feel at home. Partly it is because it is just in one of the areas of LA where it is easy to get to. But mostly it is because the food is outstanding. There are new dishes constantly, like the salmon dish I had during my last visit. But then there are also the oldies that stick around the menu like the cucumber salad, the bread, the little gems salad, and the steamed clams that always make me order too much. Whenever I eat at Kismet the food tastest like whoever cooked the dish had fun creating it, there is a combination of unpretentiousness and perfection that is part of each dish that makes a visit to Kismet like sitting down at someone’s kitchen table and having an amazing time while eating delicious food, and forgetting time.