Indigo: A Little Place With Much to Offer

What this town needs--almost anyone will tell you--is more good neighborhood restaurants. Well, another one has just been added to the ranks. Indigo, 8222 1/2 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (213) 653-0140, is a pretty, crowded little place at times where people wander in off the street to eat pizza and pasta and eclectic appetizers. It’s not a big deal sort of restaurant, but the food is sophisticated and most dishes are below $10. And it’s already so popular that when the heaters in the little patio went out a couple of nights ago quite a crowd gathered to wait for inside tables.

Once seated they munched on vegetarian “potstickers,” skewered chicken with peanut sauce, crunchy breaded calamari and pizzas topped with just about anything you can think of. They ate big bowls of pasta and garlicky marinated skirt steak. And they topped it all off with desserts such as espresso creme brulee. While they waited for their food they talked to their neighbors--the tables are really very close together--and what a lot of them seemed to be saying was how nice it is to have a little restaurant like this move in around the corner.