Love & Salt — Restaurant in Manhattan Beach

My SO wrote an entire blog post about our meal here, but here I go! The name of this restaurant is appropriate as everything was clearly made from two ingredients. Love and salt. Everything was very well seasoned! I have since gone back with my mom and eaten even more! Items consumed in no particular order:

Duck Egg Pizza English muffins (sadly, no longer available) Meatballs Lamb Tongue Panini Fett'unta (garlic bread, for the uninitiated) Half roasted chicken Brocolli di cicco Cauliflower Tonnarelli Create di Gallo (not pictured, but oh man!) Donuts!

The dug egg pizza was SO RICH, but not overly so. The crust is chewy with just the right amount of crisp and char. The meatballs we're thick and juicy with a tangy sauce. Lamb tongue Panini was amazing, the tongue was soft and flavorful and were made with so much butter I had to wash my hands afterwards (this is a compliment!) Same with the fett'unta, but minus the tongue. One note is that it's almost like Texas Toast in that the slices are actually quite thick, but with enough garlic and salted butter to create a crust that reaches into the mantle of the bread. I'd describe the English muffins, but they are no longer offered and it would just make you mad because of how amazing they were.

The tonnarelli was where I was lost. I love salt, but when this first came out, it was too salty for me. I had one bite and couldn't eat more. After the server accidentally threw out the bowl, they brought out a second portion as an apology and it was more evenly seasoned. I ate it the next night for dinner!

Broccoli was dusted with bread crumbs and deliciously garlicky.

The cauliflower is what caught me off guard! The sauce is a yogurt also with calabrian Chile and olive oil. It was tangy, smooth, crunchy, soft, super fresh, and so good!

Our main was the half chicken. The skin was crisp, the breast was SUPER juicy and the entire cut rest on chunks of garlicky, salty, buttered bread chunks.

The create had a distinct bite of black pepper which was delicious. The server brings the entire plate to you with a bone holding some marrow. They then scrape it into the pasta and mix it for you. My mom was a little taken aback by the marrow, but once she ate it, she was ok. Haha!

The donuts are so fresh and fluffy! They are also injected with a not-insignificant amount of Nutella or lemon curd. On the weekends, they only have Nutella, apparently. My mom was sad.

9/10, would come...

What a delightful experience! From the moment we walked in, to the time we left, we felt like a part of the Love & Salt family. Everyone was warm, welcome, and quick to help. The friendliness of Andres (sorry if I spelled his name wrong) was so refreshing and charming while my mom, cousins, and I caught up after not seeing one another since COVID times. The service was unassuming, low pressure, and highly attentive, and our needs were fully anticipated. Wow. All that, and I haven't even started to talk about the finely crafted drinks and flavorful, hearty, and aromatic culinary delights we enjoyed. My cousin and I took a trip through Mexican cocktails (all of them featuring Mezcal or Tequila) we loved the Hot Stuff for the heat the habanero brought, and while the Crime of Passion was really good and balanced, it was a little too fruit forward for my liking. However, the Old Fashion, Honey was a perfect ending to the meal, the bitters gave it just enough punch to offset the sweet honey and rum, while the mezcal provided depth. The meatballs were the perfect start to the meal, with just enough spice to bring the meatball to life, and allow the succulent tomato sauce to provide a smoothness and the ricotta add creaminess to tickle our palates and ready us for the next courses. The Mushroom Pizza sounded simple, but was complexly orchestrated with arugula hiding the delectable enoki mushrooms and providing enough pepper to accentuate the umami from the mushrooms that danced atop the perfectly cooked Neopolitan crust. The Salt Spring Mussels partnered perfectly with the Calabrian sausage, and flavored the broth wonderfully, leaving me wishing for a little more bread to soak up every last drop. The bone marrow in the Creste Di Gallo Midollo provided a depth and richness to the pasta that is uniquely wonderful, and the Tagliatelle Bolognese tied it all together with the acid from the tomatoes and richness of the meat. If you are looking for a wonderful evening enjoying delightful Italian food with amazing company, I highly recommend...

Came here for brunch with a couple friends and ordered everything family style.

Started off with the wood oven baked eggs. I'm not sure if the egg yolks were meant to be cooked through, but I would have liked it to be a bit more runny. The stewed tomatoes had the base flavor of a slow-cooked sauce with pops of freshly cooked tomato and olives to give it body. The buttery toast was great for mopping up excess tomato sauce!

If I were to pick the ideal sweet breakfast plate, it would definitely be lemon blueberry ricotta pancakes, and wow did this place deliver. Each pancake was sizeable, so two was great for sharing between three people. The lemon curd and blueberry compote weren't excessively sweet and lightened the sufficiently dense pancakes. Definitely a winner for pancake fans!

I'm not a fan of white pies, but I have to hand it to them for making a delicious duck egg pie. The crust was soft and elastic throughout, as if the dough had risen for over 24 hours! I would think that the pancetta and parmesan would bring excess salt, but that wasn't the case at all. In fact, the pizza benefited from a finish of course salt on the crust to bring out the flavor of the dough. To my delight, I had a little leftover sauce from the oven baked eggs to accompany the pizza.

Lastly, we had the donuts. They were warm, sugar-coated with a hint of lemon which surprisingly complemented the nutella filling! I think they could have done better than nutella as the filling (plug in the blueberry and lemon again!), but I think their menu rotates frequently enough that one would see something different.

Overall, a beautiful restaurant with attentive wait staff and great food, just a walk away...