by Celia Soudry
LA Weekly Squid Ink
April 18, 2012

If you’re still mourning the loss of chef Evan Kleiman’s Angeli Cafe (who isn’t?), you can sample her food again at The Charleston on Monday, May 7, with two seatings at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. The KCRW Good Food host will prepare a four-course rustic Italian meal, served family-style. “Everyday I get emails from customers asking me to make Angeli food and bring it to them,” says Kleiman, “It’s pretty funny, like I should now run Angeli like a cottage industry from my house. Well, that’s not going to happen, but the pop-up allows me and my staff to reunite and make food we love and of course to see customer friends we miss and give them a fleeting taste.”

The first in a series of pop-up events at The Charleston, chef Jet Tila will invite various chefs to share his kitchen on a monthly basis. For the May 7 event, you can expect farmers market-plucked ingredients in dishes such as gnocchetti di ricotta, linguine vongole, pollo arrosto, lasagne Angeli and chocolate chunk bread pudding (pictured above).

Longtime friends, Tila and Kleiman’s collaboration seemed only natural. “I was dreading never making the food again or collaborating with my staff. He [Jet Tila] told me not to worry. I could do pop-ups at his new place.” Kleiman hopes to do this sort of thing regularly and is busying herself, along with many other things, with teaching at cooking schools and in private homes. The pop-up dinner is $45 per person, not including beverages, tax and tip. To reserve, call (310) 828-2115,