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  • Details: Full Bar, Dinner
  • Hours:
    Open for dinner nightly starting at 5:30.

What's Nearby

Picks by the LA Times Staff
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More to do in: Venice

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Gjelina

310-450-1429
1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, CA 
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(1 ratings)
Price Range: $$$ ($12-$20)
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Irene
STAFF
S. Irene Virbila, LA Times Restaurant Critic

Gjelina in Venice: a high-energy Mediterranean restaurant

 

The tall door of the rustic Mediterranean restaurant opens, closes, opens -- on a roar of sound inside, much of it generated by the folks...

Times Description

Inside, it's quite the scene, very Venice chic. The glamorous and the scruffy are seated side by side at two tall communal tables, beneath a whimsical chandelier made out of an old oval pot rack twined with mismatched lightbulbs. In a reverse of the usual, the floors are brick, the ceiling wood planks, though that doesn't seem to make a difference in the pounding, festive noise level.

Still, what a smart environment for Travis Lett's exuberant California cooking. (He's the chef who put NineThirty, the restaurant at the W Hotel in Westwood, on the map when it opened in 2005.) At tables lined up under a charcoal plaster wall inscribed with graceful swirls, hungry folks are digging into platters of cured meats and cheeses, salads of burrata cheese with heirloom tomatoes and arugula, or beautiful thin-crusted pizzas smothered in fontina cheese, bitter greens and tomato confit. The wood-burning oven also turns out baby artichokes with Parmigiano and half a dozen other pizzas.

S. Irene Virbila, Times Restaurant Critic 8/25/08, to read more, click here.

Gjelina in...

Reviews from Yelp_large (3)

  • Blank_user_extra_small
    Posted by Lori B. on Yelp_small
     

    My husband made reservations here for my birthday. After I read the reviews, I decided to cancel because of the mindset of the staff (as described in the...

  • Blank_user_extra_small
    Posted by Jennifer G. on Yelp_small
     

    Seven of us did girls night/birthday celebration last night at Gjelina's and had a fun experience. We had 6PM reservations and were seated right away. Our...

  • Blank_user_extra_small
    Posted by Ami S. on Yelp_small
     

    Not a good place to go if you want to socialize with a group, it's fairly loud inside. The seating is VERY close to each other. Overall the food was decent....

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