Mastro's Steakhouse Costa Mesa

This luxe steakhouse typifies the L.A. experience. It’s swanky and high-end, crawling with models, and the food’s as good as the scene. Something about the dark-lit rooms, the varied and exotic-looking clientele and the tuxedoed pianist crooning out old hits gives it all a very old-world, clubby feel – but it’s refreshingly unpretentious and inclusive. Everything on the menu comes out big and over the top. But you knew what you were in for when you paid $17 for a martini, right? (Those blue-cheese olives don’t come cheap.) Many start off with the famed iced seafood tower, which arrives as a huge, tiered display overflowing with crab legs, shrimp, lobster, clams, and oysters. You could probably call it a night after that, but the cuts of meat – a good rib eye, prime rib, filet mignon and bone in filet – are supposedly drenched in butter and appropriately succulent. The sides don’t disappoint either, with the lobster mashed potatoes, gorgonzola macaroni and cheese and onion rings getting special raves. Not that you’ll have room for it, but the butter cake for dessert is a nice way to cap it all off. Just know that you will spend money and your daily allotment of calories here.