BEING THERE : Requiem for a Ristorante

My father used to tell me that if I ever wanted to open a restaurant I ought to call him right up--and he’d talk me out of it. He was in restaurant supply. We ate a lot of dinners out, at restaurants that owed him money but could only pay in free lasagna or chow mein.

When Evan Kleiman opened Trattoria Angeli in West L.A. seven years ago, the specter of defeat was on sabbatical. Everyone went out to dinner all the time. A swarm of hipsters, swathed in black, would light at a new restaurant, linger for a couple of weeks, then take off to try on another place. When the Trat opened, it was impossible to see the pizza counter: It was surrounded by people, four deep, all waiting for tables.

But the trend-chasers moved on, the economy closed in and the baby boomers started staying home with the kids. Some nights, Kleiman imagined people bowling in the aisles. Trattoria Angeli--her most beautiful child, with its pale wood walls, silvery light fixtures and high ceilings--was failing. In January, she decided to close it down and concentrate on her other restaurants, the original Angeli Caffe on Melrose, and Angeli Mare in Marina del Rey. She couldn’t juggle them all.

On the last two nights, she served a buffet. All the regulars came, with their parents, their kids and their stories. We all ate too much, hopped tables and reminisced. These weren’t the culinary flirts; they were the loyalists.

My husband, who knows that I carry the restaurant chromosome, suggested that I get up on the steel catwalk that ran along one long wall to make a toast. I knew what to say: I wrote about the Trat when it opened and now I had to write about it again because it was closing. I knew, from looking at the people in the room, that Evan Kleiman understood what a good restaurant had to be: It had to feed the heart. On that scale, the Trat was a resounding success.

But I didn’t do it. I didn’t want my voice to crack in front of all those people--and besides, I think they knew it anyway.