A Baja-influenced seafood bounty at Venice’s San Damián, the new marisquería sibling to Damián in the Arts District, could not have come at a better moment. Just as the beach enclave grows even more irresistible during warmer months, Enrique Olvera and his team, including chef Chuy Cervantes, have opened what may be Los Angeles’s hit restaurant of the season. Inside hasn’t changed much since the Atla days (everything still creamy, beachy, and spare), but new wall accents and an encompassing palo santo scent make the space feel refreshed. The menu, tight and judiciously curated, focuses entirely on seafood but for a handful of dishes (salsa macha–shellacked pollo frito, carne asada, and an epazote quesadilla among them). You are here for fish, though, and should concentrate fully on the lightning-flash ceviches, tostadas, and seafood mains.
Venice’s Rivian-driving upper class: millennial moms wearing Sézane and toting babies in Artipoppe carriers; tech bro dads who show their ankles under cuffed denim or khaki; younger couples on date night wondering if the wealthy but dissociative Westside parents sitting around them are their future. True seafood lovers also stream in — those who have followed Olvera for decades, and those who just need their mariscos fix as soon as possible.
The drinks menu doesn’t have a strong non-alcoholic cocktail component but the bartender may make you a zero-proof margarita if you ask nicely. Homemade tepache in flavors like pineapple-shiso and guava-hibiscus round out the options.