Where to find a spectacular seafood platter in Los Angeles

Here are my weekly recommendations on where to eat — and what to order — right now.

The Deck Hand from the Lonely Oyster

Lately, my social media feeds have been crowded with plateaux de fruits de mer: Elaborate platters and towers of pebbled ice, oysters, mussels and curved prawns, lobster tails, crabs legs that dangle over the sides, halved lemons, ramekins of cocktail sauce and mignonette and tiny forks that protrude at all angles. They are all lavish and enticing, but rarely does a platter make an impression like the one at the new Lonely Oyster in Echo Park.

The Deck Hand is the smallest of the three on offer at the restaurant, but I’d still call it grand. Chef Dillon Turner refers to his platters as gateways, starts to an evening that might end with his lobster roll trio or brown butter scallops. The Deck Hand, however, is just the beginning.

“I try to give you kind of a journey through destination and taste,” he said recently.

The goal is to offer three East Coast and three West Coast oysters. On a recent visit, there were briny Malpeques from the East and Kusshi oysters from the Canadian province of British Columbia, with an even sharper brine and a sweet finish. Tiny, meaty clams from Totten Inlet in Washington state were covered in a sweet mango relish. There was a small dish of diced Red Snapper in leche de tigre and mussels dressed in a simple but effective chimichurri. In the center, two Mexican black tiger prawns intertwined next to cocktail sauce. there was also a fried wonton chip with Santa Barbara uni and a dollop of caviar.

Rather than your more traditional presentation of oyster accouterment, the seafood at the Lonely Oyster is served with a trio of dropper bottles filled with citrus soy, Calabrian chili oil and mignonette.

What’s the best way to approach such a collection?

“It’s absolutely up to you how you want to play it,” Turner said. “I would start with the oysters.”

As for which sauce to pair with what, though there are plenty of options on the table, Turner said he eats his oysters “straight up.”

The fried fish sandwich at Canopy Club

Canopy Club is the newish poolside restaurant and lounge at the Shay Hotel in Culver City. It offers major Miami vibes with two-toned scalloped umbrellas that flap in the wind, pops of flamingo pink and palm tree fronds on the wallpaper. During lunch, it’s a sun-drenched oasis, and the pool sparkles.

Some of the cocktails, like the Telenovela (mezcal, poblano liqueur, passionfruit, lime, habanero bitters, a noticeable amount of cilantro and a Tajin rim) are garnished with mini plastic flamingos. A staffer, who may have been the manager, let our table know that the Telenovela gets its name from the drama associated with the cocktail and also that some people believe cilantro tastes like soap. Get it?

I did. I also ordered the crispy fish sandwich. It’s the sort of sandwich with a filet of fish that hangs over the bun like a giant, heavily battered, misshapen fish stick. I grew up on the Filet-O-Fish at McDonald’s, so the comparison is unavoidable. The Canopy Club sandwich gets a full slice of floppy American cheese (not half), shredded Little Gem lettuce, pickled cucumber and onion, and a good smear of tangy caper remoulade on a buttery bun. It is worth a second, third and probably a fourth visit, even without the pool and the sunshine.

The fish fry at the Rubie Jamaican pop-up

The fish fry at the Rubie Jamaican pop-up.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

How good can a bowl of rice and beans possibly be? They’re ingredients that can be deeply meaningful for anyone who eats and prepares them. I grew up eating pot-steamed short-grain white rice flecked with ink-black, salty fermented soybeans. It’s still a meal or a snack that makes me feel centered. This week, I had googly eyes for another bowl of rice and beans.

To appreciate chef Giancarlo Scott’s fish fry, we need to first start with his rice and beans. Scott, who runs the Rubie Jamaican pop-up with his wife, serves his fish over a bed of jasmine rice and Rancho Gordo Domingo Rojo beans. It eats like risotto, the kernels swollen with coconut milk and warmly spiced with cinnamon, clove and allspice. The beans, cooked separately and scattered throughout, add a smack of sherry vinegar, garlic and thyme.

“What I’m cooking is Jamaican food at heart,” Scott said recently. The chef, whose father is from Jamaica, cooked at Providence in Los Angeles before moving to Seattle for a few years and returning to launch the Rubie pop-up. “I kept coming back to the flavors of the Caribbean and anything West African as well. It’s part of my culture, and I just want to have fun with it.”

Scott’s rice and beans are the base for his fish fry, a filet of Pacific rockfish that’s lightly dredged in cornstarch spiked with curry powder. The filet is deep fried until the fish seems to melt under the crisp coating rather than flake. It’s topped with a salsa verde composed of charred scallions, chopped cornichons, Old Bay spice, mustard, honey and sherry vinegar. On the side are two slices of fried plantains.

I ate Scott’s fish fry sitting on a folding chair during a recent pop-up at Benny Boy Brewing in Lincoln Heights. The fish fry was served in what I imagine was a biodegradable bowl. I used my bent plastic fork to break off pieces of fish and collect bits of the green onion with heaping scoops of rice and beans. I saved the plantains to eat as dessert.

“I just try to do what tastes good and make it make sense the best I can,” Scott said.

This was a bowl worthy of the grandest setting. Scraping my takeout bowl clean with my bent fork, while the Dodgers played on a big TV in the background, it all made sense.