Restaurant Review

Mo-Chica Ricardo Zarate has moved Mo-Chica. What was once a modest lunch counter east of USC is now a stylish eatery in downtown Los Angeles, but the deconstructed Peruvian dishes remain artful. LOCATION 514 W. Seventh St., Los Angeles, (213) 622-3744, mo-chica.com. PRICES Small plates, $7-$18; desserts, $6-$7. DETAILS Open Monday to Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to midnight. Credit cards accepted. Valet parking after 7 p.m.

Have you been to the new Mo-Chica? Ricardo Zarate's Peruvian restaurant seems to define the downtown thing at the moment: It's a high-style warren on 7th Street, down the block from Bottega Louie, where the scene is as important as the drinks, and the drinks are as vital as the food. The salsa music is pervasive - no panpipes here - and the main dining room is dominated by a stage set of a bar where the statuesque mixologist whacks her shaker around like Sheila E with a güiro . Specials flutter from taut wires strung above the open kitchen, like art-directed versions of the construction-paper signs taped to the walls in Eastside dives.

Los Angeles is flooded with grastropubs, but most of them aren't really pubs in the true sense of the word. The Pikey is the real deal. There are three beers on tap, and fish and chips is on the menu. LOCATION 7617 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 850-5400, thepikeyla.com PRICES Snacks, $4-$5; small plates, $11-$16; main courses, $14-$27 DETAILS Open 11:45 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Credit cards accepted.

It is toward midnight at the Pikey, the lights are fairly low and the Kinks are playing so loudly that you swear you can hear Ray Davies scratching his ears. You are seated beneath one of Ben Watts' photographs of aging Teddy Boys - tattooed Robert Mitchum types in dark, bespoke suits, and you may be drinking something called a Divine Brown, a peculiar mixture of Ancient Age whiskey and Dr Pepper named for the hooker caught with Hugh Grant just a few blocks from here in Hollywood. You will definitely be observing members of the crowd - in their early 20s - who don't sit down to dinner as much as drift from table to table, having a drink here and an appetizer there before vanishing into the night.

Andoni Luis Aduriz, the chef of Mugaritz, in the countryside outside San Sebastian, Spain, may be the closest thing to a pure artist in the restaurant world today. He encases potatoes in thin coats of ceramic so his customers can experience the sensation of biting into a stone. He drives dark-chocolate nails into scoops of sorbet. He smears fish eggs on sheets of edible plastic or curls of edible construction paper. He even has a manifesto: "You don't have to like something to like it. " But in the food world, Aduriz is perhaps better known for his mastery of the slow-poached egg, a variation of the Japanese onsen egg cooked for nearly an hour in a water bath at precisely 62.5 degrees Celsius (144.5 degrees Fahrenheit)

The first time you come to n/naka, a kaiseki restaurant a bit north of Sony studios in the Palms area of Los Angeles, you will inevitably soar right by the place, a low, featureless building in a strip of dry cleaners and tarot-card readers surrounded by a raked zen garden in 50 shades of gray. There is no sign, no valet parking, no hint that you are entering a restaurant instead of a high-toned back office. When you find your way through the front door, you will be greeted by name - reservations are mandatory - and led through the spare, elegant dining room to a serene private room or possibly a nook that looks like the sleeping alcove in an expensive Manhattan studio apartment.