This one time at a restaurant I thought I saw Chloe Sevigny and I was like, woah! But then I looked again and it was just an anaemic girl wearing socks with her sandals. Then this other time I thought I saw Jon Hamm but then I was like, nope, nu-uh, that’s just a dude with powerful thighs. The moral of this story is that you should eat dinner at Little Dom’s, ‘cause both Chloe and Jon have. On the corner of a couple more same-same streets in LA (in Los Feliz) Little Dom’s is that great Italian place you go to all the time, where you pretend to read the menu but always order the same thing, talk shit for hours, gesticulating wildly, drink wine ‘til your gums are stained plum, and numb, then stumble home. Basically, you started going to Little Dom’s cause it was near your house. We go on a Wednesday and it’s busy, jammed with Angelinos (Los Felicianos?) who look you up and down – not in a Mean Girls way, more a ‘nice selvedge jeans’ kind of way. The main dining room is both full and fully booked – obvs, I am told – and we are invited to take seven steps to the right for our forty-minute (approx) wait. Stuck now between the bar and booths, I feel like the uncool kid at a party, chemical-sweating in a corner, swaying to New Order. A party where everyone is especially cool and called Tad or Dree. And Tad or Dree are working on a screenplay that touches on domestic violence, but at its heart is a romantic comedy. One Blue Monday later, we’re at the bar and order a bracing Mint Julep (like ‘vicious heaven’, apparently) and a Virgin Margarita (tastes a tiny bit like egg white. Or maybe just a dirty glass?) As the ‘tails take the edge off, Tad and Dree’s earnest discussion of their ill-conceived screenplay becomes endearing; they’re just folks going about their business. And like the dining experience back home at Fratelli Paradiso, the people watching at Little Dom’s is half the fun. Especially when you look across the bar and see Orlando Bloom! Which didn’t actually happen that night. We are offered a table outside, under the plastic awning, and accept; it’s a mild LA evening and the subtle hint of egg white has teased my already aggravated appetite into tantrum. I choose the New York steak ($41), medium rare, and we start with a salad of raw baby kale ($11). As revolting as those three words, in that particular order sound, this salad is not. The kale tingles with the peppery heat of raw greens; sweet strips of roasted Red Kuri and Kabocha squash are tangled within, all soft and caramelised. A simple Balsamic vinaigrette later and… OMG. I’m pretty sure we’re sitting next to Jason Segal. Oh, huh? No? Shame.

http://www.littledoms.com/