Red Hill (CLOSED)

Echo Park could use more simple, well-priced, truly-neighborhood restaurants, and time will tell whether owner Jason Michaud's Red Hill fills this need. It's properly casual—not much is over $15—and when the menu hits, it soars. The fried cauliflower mingled with pine nuts and a lovely chile aioli, for example, is a favorite, as are the freshly made pastas, including a plate of buttery cappellacci with chicken liver and lobster mushrooms. The menu strikes out, though, when dishes stray too far from its own rustic simplicity, as was the case with the lardo beignets with mustard seed that sounded more interesting than they were. Given a few months to work out its kinks—and to streamline a very slow, albeit friendly, service—Red Hill might be everything the neighborhood wants it to be.