GJELINA IS STILL the place of choice for friends visiting from the East Coast — the ones you love the most, whom you battle through LAX’s traffic nightmares to collect. They want to sit on the restaurant’s patio and gape up at the milky blue sky over Venice. They yearn for the Gjelina vibes: the particular mishmash of microseasonal produce and broadly Italian recipes that bends L.A. stereotypes into something energizing. Gjelina Group executive chef Juan Hernandez and his team slyly tinker with the format created by Travis Lett (who left in 2019). A soft scramble with squash blossoms for breakfast may have become an omelet. Braised cranberry beans seasoned with soffritto and crisped prosciutto might also now pop with the musk of black lime. Raclette and fromage blanc give a pizza some edgier funk. Your new arrivals feel like they chose well, and now they want to wander Abbot Kinney.

• 1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, (310) 450-1429, gjelina.com