There’s a number of restaurants that aren’t on this list, even though I’ve been to them several times. The reason Gladstone’s has taken this long to make it is because of two reasons: 1) every time I go I order a burger or steak because everything I want is too expensive for me to justify, and 2) we always go with the same friends whom we love dearly and it’s more fun to watch them go berserk for the seafood. The truth is that fish bores me even though I know it’s good for me. I love living near the water but have little interest in going in it or eating from its depths. I guess it provides me with an inner sustenance. Some of the best memories from my youth in Baltimore involve going to Phillip’s in the Inner Harbor, strapping on a bib, cracking open a Maryland blue crab, and relishing every moment of delicious pain as Old Bay seasoning seeped into the tiny slices made by the razor sharp shell fragments. Scooping yellow “mustard” out of the females and digging for precious treasure in the deep chambers of the crustacean. The Maryland blue crab has been overfished out of existence, so those memories are all that are left of my relationship with the crab. I’ve gone back home and had the Louisiana blue crab substitute, but somehow it was like visiting my old elementary school: everything was smaller and harder to navigate. Gladstone’s has lines miles long for their seafood bonanzas, but since seafood for me is more of a communal experience than a gastronomic one I’ll simply enjoy the company more than the food.
(310) 454-3474, 17300 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades