>Granita has been an LA, specifically a Malibu institution, for 15 years. I’m not sure if it preceded Spago, but it certainly has had nearly the same cache, despite being located in a strip mall in Malibu off of PCH.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this trek out to Malibu — Granita wouldn’t have occurred to me, even though I’d heard it’s closing at the end of September, allowing Wolfgang Puck and Chef Jennifer Taylor to focus on other things. But now I can say I’ve been there. Is it so different from other Puck ventures? Well, I’m not so sure, aside from being on the pricier side. I thought twice about getting the iceberg wedge with blue cheese dressing and cherry tomatoes because it was $14, but I went for it anyway. My main was a Grilled Shrimp skewer (6 medium-ish shrimp – a nice portion) with sun-dried tomato hummus served atop couscous (which was more like a grain melange rather than straight couscous) with yogurt-mint sauce.
The menu featured a number of seasonal dishes (another reason the iceberg wedge gave me pause) and my dining companions both had the white corn soup and pronounced it delicious. There was also an heirloom tomato caprese salad among the starters. And of course, this being a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, the menu included a number of pizzas that I passed up — I’m still kicking myself about the grilled fig one.
I’m not much of a fish eater, so the entrees seemed to include an almost disproportionate number of seafood selections. That said, there were probably at least 10 entree options — amazing in and of itself. A few of the non-seafood options were a NY strip steak, a kurobota pork chop and other grilled items.
While the drive to Malibu was lovely, I think Granita will be most missed by locals, and while the open kitchen w/ the crazy tiles has become something of a signature for Wolfgang Puck, the fact that you even see it in airports make the impact of the interior design a little less impactful.