Talk of the town
Some of the places where Pasadena’s movers and shakers like to dine
By Jessica Hamlin 07/22/2010
Beverly Lafontaine
Marketing Director for Pasadena Conservatory of Music
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Café Verde is, to me, the quintessential Pasadena restaurant. It has an intimate, welcoming feel along with a very professional and unobtrusive wait staff. I’m always very comfortable when I go there with friends or family. I love it for breakfast as well as dinner. My favorite dish is the lamb chops with garlic mashed potatoes and shitake Cabernet reduction. It’s tender, well seasoned and not overwhelming. By the way, they make a mean cup of coffee.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
There are a number of restaurants that you can become familiar with, and that’s always nice. It’s very convenient and there’s usually parking.
Ralph McKnight
Pasadena Arts and Culture Commissioner/Artist/Community Activist
What is your favorite restaurantin the Pasadena area?
Burger Continental. I like it because of the ambiance and atmosphere. The food is very good and there’s a great variety of food. There’s the music in the evening, and I like the patio that’s inside. The owners have been very generous to the community. All those put together give it five stars in my mind.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
I’m from the East coast, so Pasadena is unlike most parts of Southern California. Pasadena has a slightly urban aspect to it that I enjoy. There’s a great number of restaurants where the food is absolutely excellent. The ambiance inside and outside the restaurants is always good. Wherever I dine I see people who are out doing things, unlike other parts where people dine in a vacuum almost. I love the liveliness and vibrancy.
Ben McGinty
Owner and Curator of Gallery at the End of the World
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Amy’s in Altadena. It’s my favorite because it’s right here in my community. It’s like going to a restaurant or more of a hipper place in Hollywood or Silver Lake; an area where there’s more commerce going on. The food is fantastic and the girls are always real sweet.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
I like dining in Pasadena because there’s a strong diversity in the types of food we can choose from. There’s anything and everything across the smorgasbord of restaurants that you can find, all in one place.
Deborah Williams-Hedges
Senior media relations representative at Caltech
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
President Thai. The quality of the food, the tastes and flavors are exotic and enticing. It’s affordable and the variety of dishes they have is good. I’ve been going there since it was a small place 10 or 15 years ago and the quality, if anything, has gotten better.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
The proximity to home. There’s a nice ambiance in Old Pasadena, so there’s always nice atmosphere there as well.
Jon Lapointe
Director of communications for Armory Center for the Arts
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Lucky Baldwin’s. I’m a New England boy originally, and Lucky Baldwin’s has really good Northeast comfort food with a little old hearkening back to my East Coast days. It reminds me a lot of Boston and New York. The people are fantastic and it has the best stuff on tap I’ve experienced anywhere in Southern California, so it’s a fabulous Friday destination. The wait staff is so well-trained.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
The ability to walk and roam around Old Pasadena at night is nice. You feel like you’re in a great big city and a real small town at the same time.
John Van de Kamp
Former California Attorney General
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
For a fancy meal, Bistro 45. The service is great, the food is always very good and they do an elegant job. It’s a really high-class restaurant. They have special dinners on occasion that we tend to go to. Bob Simon, who owns it, is a very good host.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
We all of a sudden have a number of really fine restaurants, where 50 years ago you had maybe one restaurant. There’s a great variety of good restaurants in Pasadena right now and it’s a tough business to survive, but they seem to be doing it.
Sonali Kolhatkar
Host and Executive Producer of KPFK’s morning program, “Uprising”
What is your favorite restaurantin the Pasadena area?
Sachi Sushi. I’m a vegetarian and they are one of the only restaurants in Pasadena that is very vegetarian friendly and serves sushi. There are few people like me who love sushi and the types of food that go with sushi but don’t like raw fish. But they cater to that small niche of people and also have very health-friendly and vegan-friendly food. You can get brown rice instead of white rice, fake meat options, and it’s really good and reasonable and homey. It’s a family-run restaurant and I tend to favor family-run restaurants. It’s a very informal and comfortable atmosphere.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
It’s in town and close by. I don’t have to get on the freeway and brave traffic. A lot of things are close by and clustered. That’s something conducive to community, I think, as opposed to parts of LA, where restaurants are spread out or few and far between. You can go watch the movies and go to Vroman’s and go to Sachi without getting into your car.
Terry LeMoncheck
Executive Director of the Pasadena Arts Council
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Café Santorini, specifically outside on the patio. It’s outdoor elegance at its best. The food is great and service is good. It’s a great place on a summer evening.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
Everything is here in Pasadena: bookstores, galleries and theaters … so dining in Pasadena is the logical step, because you can enjoy it all in one place.
Sherry Simpson-Dean
Executive Director of the United Nations Association, Pasadena Chapter
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Café Verde on Green Street. They have a Cuban coffee that is great and often really hard to find around here, and that’s really delicious. They have fantastic brunch. They have a corkage so you can bring your own wine there for dinner, which is exciting. I had my husband’s birthday there this year and it’s a very small restaurant with down-home, yet gourmet food. I think Green Street is my favorite street in Pasadena. You can just sit there and watch people go by.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
I moved to Pasadena in large part because of the variety of restaurants. Restaurants are a pretty big draw for me, so I’ve been to most of them. Coming from New York, I feel like wherever I go I want to have great food. Pricewise, you have phenomenal food. It’s a real restaurant town. There’s an innovative spirit among the restaurants and some of the dining rooms here are beautiful.
Nat Nehdar
Pasadena Human Relations Commissioner
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Lovebirds Café and Bakery. As soon as you step in you feel an atmosphere that’s friendly. The food is great and the prices are fair. The service is a key factor that makes me go back over and over again; you feel just like a family member. They also have a wonderful pastry selection. The owners truly go out of their way to make people feel at home.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
It has a great atmosphere and good variety of different types of food and culture, and the restaurants pretty much have dedicated themselves to bringing their culture into their venue and quality of food.
Anne Peterson
Director of Lleadership and Liturgy at All Saints Episcopal Church
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Parkway Grill. I like the ambiance; the way the room has different levels, that big open area in the middle and the amazing flowers. Especially at Christmas, it’s so beautifully decorated. They have a salmon dish I really like and the short ribs are divine. I went there to celebrate when it was Emily’s and then it was Perkins’ and then it was Parkway. Birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, lots of memories.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
I think there are a lot of good restaurants here now and I live in Pasadena, so I like the convenience of it.
Bob Stane
owner of Coffee Gallery Backstage
What is your favorite restaurant in the Pasadena area?
Kathleen’s. The food is not doctored; it’s very pure and it doesn’t have a lot of salt in it. They serve a good salmon dinner.
What do you like about dining in Pasadena?
I try to dine close to my work. I entertain people related to my business very often, so I try to stay close.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT