My review this week is about Alto, a restaurant in Studio City that entwines the Argentine and Uruguayan backgrounds of its two chefs in ways not seen before in Los Angeles, or possibly anywhere.
Jenn Harris and I included Alto, which opened in late August, on our most recent guide to L.A.’s 101 Best Restaurants. We were both especially taken with the beginning and end of dinner: some extraordinary interpretations of breads common to the Río de la Plata region to start, and a fantastic, painstaking dessert called torta rogel comprising layered wafers glossed with dulce de leche and crowned with breaking waves of Italian meringue. It’s a regular weekend special rightly paraded through the dining room on a trolley.
“Criollo” bread with herb butter at Alto in Studio City
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Chefs Juana Castellanos Lagemann and Esteban Klenzi met while working at Mugaritz, the 28-year-old modernist restaurant in northern Spain’s Basque Country. While never veering too extreme, their menu at Alto flashes now and then on the avant-garde.
The future and past of South American fine dining in L.A.
Thinking about how the cooking looks to the future, my mind wandered in opposite directions too. South American cuisines certainly have a presence across Los Angeles, but while Alto moves the needle forward in finer-dining realms, is there a place that best embodies a more traditional approach to Ríoplatense culture?
For me, after two recent meals, the answer is Carlitos Gardel, a sumptuous Argentine steakhouse that celebrates its 30th anniversary in the fall.
Carlos and Azniv Bozoghlian moved with their three sons from Buenos Aires to Los Angeles in the early 1990s. They were part of the large Armenian diaspora in Argentina’s capital, settling anew in the city that is home to the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia. The Bozoghlians opened their restaurant on Melrose Avenue in 1996 with no prior experience in the food industry, but driven by a desire to re-create the Argentine dining experiences they’d left behind.
Co-owner and sommelier Max Bozoghlian carves steak tableside at Carlitos Gardel.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
The dining room radiates nostalgia. Pictures of several generations of family cram the walls. Glance all the way to the back and note the black-and-white image of Carlitos Gardel, the legendary fedora-clad tango singer who died in the 1930s. Glass fixtures filled with strung lights sit on the posts of a fern-green wooden divider that runs the length of the dining room. In the amber dimness, they look like lanterns powered by fireflies.
Two of the three sons primarily run the restaurant these days: Max Bozoghlian, a sommelier, oversees service and what must be L.A.’s deepest selection of Argentine wines, a tour of regions and varietals filling more than a dozen pages. He has quick, confident suggestions in every price tier, including bottles he hasn’t gotten around to adding yet to the printed list.
His younger brother Gerard leads the kitchen, taking over for his mother, who was the restaurant’s founding chef, during the pandemic.
Americanized dishes have ebbed and flowed over the years, but I respect that true-minded tenants of an Argentine parrilla (steakhouse) have held the menu’s center. Prominent among appetizers are several traditional offal presentations. The morcilla (blood sausage) is excellent, the flavor buzzed with allspice and the texture, yielding and plumped with soft grains of rice, brings to mind some of the more pudding-like versions of Louisiana boudin. Sweetbreads are grilled to crispness and doused with lemon. White wine vinaigrette duly brightens cool slices of lengua.
Provoleta, a classic Argentine appetizer, made with imported provolone at Carlitos Gardel. Morcilla (blood sausage) is on the right.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
An old-school style of service reinforces Carlitos Gardel’s enduring charm. Max or another server will recite specials tableside, many of them available nightly. Listen for the recitation about imported, extra-sharp and salty provolone for provoleta, the classic baked Argentine starter in which the cheese sizzles and blisters and wobbles without ever quite melting. Were the winter tomatoes served on the side a little wan and mealy? Yes, but it didn’t matter. Offset with the musky warmth of dried oregano, the provolone needed only bread.
It’s hard not to want a couple of empanadas to break apart: Given the supremacy of the provoleta, I’d choose ones stuffed with saucy chicken or beef over a molten filling of spinach or cheese.
Meats that define an Argentine steakhouse
As for the steaks: Their pleasure and character hasn’t much changed since former restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila last wrote about Carlitos Gardel for The Times in 2010. She pointed out the parrillada: “[A] mixed grill, for two, which is ample for three, maybe even four if you don’t have big appetites. A small grill arrives on the table, with coals underneath to keep the meat warm. You get skirt steak, short ribs, blood sausage … Argentine style chorizo and flattened sweetbreads. … It’s quite the carnivore’s feast.”
The description remains entirely true, and ideal for a group to easily share a gamut of meaty highlights. Two I’d throw in for a party of any size: tapa de ojo, the long, rounded cut of rib-eye cap prized for its marbling and tenderness, and a pair of thick lamb chops frequently on special.
The two musts on the side: the restaurant’s balanced, punchy chimichurri, and for contrast the rougher-diced salsa criolla. A plate of ñoquis — the Argentine version of gnocchi, one of the most entrenched contributions from the country’s mass immigration of 3.5 million Italians between the mid-19th and 20th centuries — made with spinach and sauced first in cream and then set in a pool of marinara makes for fun overkill.
Tapa de ojo, or rib-eye cap, a frequent special at Carlitos Gardel.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
As does the last dessert creation of Azniv Bozoghlian, a precarious tower of cake, thick layers of dulce de leche, meringue and chopped peaches that shows up on nearly every table, particularly after Max comes by with visuals, by which I mean a theatrically old-fashioned dessert tray, for extra enticement.
The larger subject of chophouses in the city can be saved for another time. Local and national restaurant groups run the majority of them. The familial graciousness here, coupled with its solid and specific cooking, steer it into another category altogether. What I’m saying is: I think Carlitos Gardel just became my favorite steakhouse in Los Angeles.
Carlitos Gardel: 7963 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 655-0891, carlitosgardel.com
Also …
- Stephanie Breijo reports on the opening of La Sandunga, a new stall in Grand Central Market serving Oaxacan specialties, including chicken in mole, lamb barbacoa and nearly table-sized tlayudas.
- Martine Thompson writes about Bloom Ranch, a 250-acre expanse in Acton that became the largest Black-owned farm in the county when Dr. Bill Releford purchased it in 2023. Jason Armond has some incredible photographs of the property and the weekly Sunday jazz brunches.
- It was announced this week that the Serving Spoon, the third-generation family-owned restaurant in Inglewood, won a 2026 James Beard Foundation’s America’s Classics award. Angela Osorio has the details.
