With a Little Help From L.A., Restaurant Has the Food of the World

Out front, a shaggy umbrella in front of the valet stand ruffles in the breeze. Welcome to Tahiti, a new Los Angeles restaurant from Tony Di Lembo, former personal chef to Barbra Streisand and co-owner and chef at the late Indigo just up the street.

“This is where the Golden Temple was!,” squeals my dining companion, remembering the vegetarian restaurant that occupied the same site--well, we won’t say how long ago. The narrow garden now has a tropical theme, with leaf-shaped cocktail tables and Polynesian print seating. The restaurant’s decor is fun with giant Ali Baba jars moored in the middle of the room, shields entirely covered in peacock feathers hanging from the ceiling and tall banquettes upholstered in snakeskin chenille. Galapagos-sized turtles climb the wall, perhaps intent on reading the quote from W. Somerset Maugham painted there: “I looked up and I saw the outline of Tahiti. And I knew right away that this was the place I’d been looking for all my life.”

But then he was British and unused to balmy weather.

What do you eat in a Tahitian restaurant? you might ask, eyeing the those climbing turtles. Not to worry. In this Tahiti the the food is what’s called “world cuisine,” and just about anything goes--except turtle. You’ve got your pot stickers the size of baby sting rays. Chicken skewers come with a mild peanut sauce--nothing scary--and sugary cucumber salad. The best dish of the night is a bready pizza topped with Yucatan chicken sausage, jack cheese, roasted corn and those pesky habanero chiles. Heartier fare ranges from a T-bone “charred Argentine style” with chimichurri sauce and chicken breast in Thai red curry with lime ginger butter to Yucatan-style Chilean sea bass baked in banana leaves.

After all, this is L.A., and you can get pretty much anything in terms of ingredients. Things I bet Maugham never dreamed of.

BE THERE

Tahiti, 7910 W. 3rd St., L.A.; (213) 651-1213. Open Mondays through Saturdays for dinner; Mondays through Fridays for lunch. Valet parking. Appetizers $5 to $8; pizzas $12 to $14; pastas $10 to $15; main courses $13 to $24.