While Las Palmas has grown up (or perhaps degenerated) around it, Miceli's keeps on with untrendy Italian staples, a piano man and singing waitresses.

It's tough to find good pasta in LA, and we don't mean the "sun-dried tomato with ginger soy reduction" kind. We mean real Italian food, or at least what New Yorkers consider Italian—ditto for pizza. Thankfully, Miceli's delivers up hearty, tasty and satisfying meals like your nona (that's grandma) used to make. Some say it's bland. We say it's traditional. And the room looks like it's out of a '60s Hollywood movie, with red-and-white checked tablecloths and empty chianti bottles hanging everywhere. Boy, do those waitresses have pipes! —Lonny Pugh