At this Manhattan Beach steak house nostalgia bomb, located just a whiskey stone's throw from the waves, chef David LeFevre isn't so much reinventing the classics as he is fine- tuning them. The SHRIMP COCKTAIL doesn't come with any fancy emulsions or foams, just perfectly cooked jumbo shrimp served chilled with a spot-on house-made cocktail sauce. Like the food, the space is nostalgic without being campy: leather stools, modernist light fixtures, and plenty of dark wood.

Ambiance and shellfish are all well and good, but chances are you came to The Arthur J for a power steak—the type of luxurious, totally over-the-top slab of beef that Don Draper closes deals with. The 34-ounce dry-aged, grass-fed, BONE-IN RIBEYE is the stuff of legend. It's the essence of grassy, funky, bovine twang, and there is no more primal food experience than manhandling the comically large bone to get at the last precious morsels of charred meat.