Restaurant news: Jon & Vinny’s in Brentwood; culinary courses in Pasadena

Jon & Vinny’s

Jon & Vinny’s, a take on the red-sauce Italian restaurant opened by restaurateurs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo and wine person Helen Johannesen, has a newly opened Brentwood location. The space recalls the family-friendly feel of the original, which opened on Fairfax in 2015. The new location features the same menu of pizzas, pastas and wood-grilled meat dishes, overseen by chef Courtney Storer, and has its own outlet of Helen’s Wines if you’re looking for bottles to take home.

11938 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 442-2733, jonandvinnys.com

Myungrang Hot Dog

Myungrang Hot Dog, a hot dog-on-a-stick chain from Korea, has landed in Koreatown’s Wilshire Center. The menu promises fried dogs oozing mozzarella, batters dyed black with squid ink, and tteokbokki that have been impaled, battered and fried. Why not?

450 S. Western Ave., Suite 313, Los Angeles, (213) 375-7518, myungranghotdogus.com

LN2 Pizza Shoppe

Chef Chris Robbins opened LN2 Pizza Shoppe with an eclectic comfort-food-for-the-Instagram-age menu on Melrose last week. There are pizzas topped with duck confit, Manila clams or caramelized figs. And there are things that are not pizzas, like an open-face duck banh mi or 36-hour pork belly with kimchi puree.

7212 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 917-5178, ln2pizzashoppe.com

H.O.M

The owners of Beverly Hills’ Da Pasquale are putting together pretty plates of regionally diverse, ingredient-driven Italian at Woodland Hills’ new H.O.M. Here, fresh pastas come with lobster or octopus ragus. Pizzas include one topped with mortadella, black truffle and pistachios. The menu claims the eggplant parm and meatballs recipes are nonna’s own, of course.

21136 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, (818) 313-9500, letsgohom.com

Lord of the Smash

Lord of the Smash, an outfit specializing in wagyu brisket smash burgers, created by owners of South Bay-based Bartz Barbecue, pops up this Sunday at Los Angeles Ale Works in Hawthorne starting at 4:30 p.m.

12918 Cerise Ave., Hawthorne, @lordofthesmash on Instagram

Closings

La Conversation, a 37-year-old bakery and cafe on Doheny Drive, closed Saturday.

Extra

The Natural Gourmet Institute, the nation’s first accredited and licensed plant-based, nutrition-focused culinary school, is closing. But its culinary training program will now be offered through Pasadena’s Institute of Culinary Education; classes are expected to start April 30.

521 E. Green St., Pasadena, (888) 718-2433, ice.edu/NGC