Shakespeare once wrote, “a place for all reasons and all seasons” and those words are a great intro to Coupa Café, a lively restaurant and wine bar situated on North Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. I know there are about 15 restaurants along that well-known restaurant row and at least 13 of them are Italian and another one is Chinese. So if you are looking to dine on cuisine that is different and delicious then the Venezuelan treats at Coupa Café are your best bet. A very welcoming aura pervades the spacious dining room, with the umber painted walls, friendly bar and large outside patio. Well-informed staff serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and can answer any of your questions.
The owner Camelia Coupal who hails from Venezuela is well versed in her nutrition and cuisine. She works in tandem with the modern slow food movement and promotes the use of organic and fair-trade ingredients. This has been a family business for 30 years and besides the Coupa Cafe in Beverly Hills her family have opened four Coupa Cafés - on the grounds of Stanford University, one in downtown Palo Alto and of course the parent one in Caracas.
Last week, I had two major disappointments. I did not win the ticket
lottery to attend Michael Jackson’s funeral at the Staples Center and
the red velvet doughnut at the Nickel Diner in Downtown LA was not red
velvet.
I've studied wine for a decade and have worked on my palate,
expanding my personal taste to include styles from all over the world.
Red, white, sparkling, dessert. I've tried them all. Yet, when it came
to food, I still treated most meals as the means to an end – which was
drinking great wine. So the fact that I've dined at the Petrossian Cafe
twice in 3 weeks is more than a little out of character. It wasn't
until I started following a bunch of LA foodies this past spring on
Twitter that I realized how limited my experience with food really was.
I was embarrassed by the long list of delicacies that I had never eaten
and was actually afraid to put in my mouth. So, I started making a
concentrated effort to eat outside my comfort zone and jump on the
foodie bandwagon. Within the last six months I've eaten Wellfleet
oysters on the half shell (a must when on Cape Cod), Escargot a La Bourguignonne
(anything smothered in garlic and butter tastes good) and a Scotch Egg
(a deep-fried delight).
Greenspans is tiny and sandwiched (no pun intended) in between a bar and some tacky Melrose clothing store on the old Tommy Tang strip of Melrose, where Evan Kleiman opened Angeli Cafe all those years ago. Back then all of the good actors in town could be found in Milton Katselas’s Mon and Wed night class at the Zepher Theater just across the street, and Chianti was down the block serving up perfect stracciatella soup. That stretch was something back in its day. (Pardon the walk back 30 years).
Two years ago, I made a decision that forever changed my
dining experience. I stopped being friends with anyone who doesn’t like
to
eat. Living in Los Angeles, the city of beautiful people, this wasn’t
an easy feat. But frankly, I was tired of sharing meals with the likes
of someone who either pushed their food around their plate as if eating
were a punishment, called themselves fat during the
entire meal in their size zero glory, or deliriously eyed my order
because the
last time they ordered anything that truly tasted good was a distant
memory. Turns out it was a damn great decision because without this new
rule in my life, I wouldn’t have my fellow foodie girlfriends Tannaz
and Rachel in my life which means I would have never been introduced to
my summer food crush and what I seriously consider the best new
addition to my Fairfax district neighborhood – The Golden State Café.