Capo

Housed in a Tuscan-style villa overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica beach, Capo’s setting is hard to beat. In the kitchen, the clean flavors of updated Italian classic cuisine (Rigatoni, truffle meat sauce; Dungeness crab risotto) are complemented by Capo’s main draw: its superb array of meat off the grill.

For the wine lover, however, even those temptations are put in the shade by the lovingly curated and expansive wine list of more than 1,200 bottles. This isn’t, perhaps, the first place you’d come to for amazing prices. But if you’re looking for a formidable range of some of the world’s greatest wines in California, it’s hard to look past Capo’s selection, which includes an array of old and hard-to-find vintages from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Piedmont, Champagne, and Tuscany—not to mention a vast collection of the best from the restaurant’s home state.