Craft

Baby beet salad with Gorgonzola.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Appetizers offer a wealth of choices — raw, cured, marinated, roasted. Several of those are combined in hamachi with Cavaillon melon and crispy ham.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Hawaiian blue prawns with prawn jus and verbena.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Tom Colicchio is known for his love of mushrooms. Here, an assortment.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

The 20-ounce dry-aged New York strip on the bone is superb, and the glaze-like Bordelaise sauce at the bottom of the pan takes it over the top.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Cubes of pork belly with Madras curry and dates are crisp and crackling outside, unctuous and soft inside. Perfect for sharing, they come in the cast-iron casserole they’re cooked in.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

It’s clear Tom Colicchio is a New York chef and not a surfer dude when you taste how much butter he uses in his potato puree.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Pear tarte Tatin with brandy pear syrup and Tasmanian pepper berry creme fraiche.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Everything about the wine service at Craft is intelligent. The list, by sommelier David Lusby, has a good deal of depth and ranges far beyond the usual suspects.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

At the nexus of Los Angeles power brokers, Craft has has all the amenities — sleek cabanas, luxuriously roomy booths far enough away from the next table that only a word or two can possibly be overheard, plus an open layout that lets everybody see and be seen.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Craft sits in a custom-built, free-standing structure steps away from CAA’s glossy new Century City headquarters.  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)