If Entourage taught viewers anything during its eight-season run on HBO—and with its big-screen incarnation that debuted this week—it’s that the Hollywood food scene isn’t so much about what you eat, but where you eat (if you eat at all). And from the very first episode, Vince, Drama, Eric, Turtle, and Ari have hit up some of L.A.’s “coolest” hot spots—and made icons out of other eateries. So as the Entourage movie continues to eat up the box office, we’re taking cues from the boys on where to be seen on the Los Angeles food scene.
1. Urth Caffé
Season: Various
Episode: Too many to name
Like Central Perk to the friends of Friends, L.A.’s organically minded Urth Caffé has been the go-to spot for the Entourage crew since the series’ earliest days. The celeb-loved café made its first appearance in the series’ very second episode (“The Review”) more than a decade ago and continued to set the stage for some of the boys’ most laidback and intimate moments—it’s the public place where they could most be themselves. It’s also where Ari managed to convince Vince that becoming an international spokesperson for foreign products could be a lucrative career move in season two, then tried to sell him on starring in Benji in season five. (Screencapture via HBO)
2. Koi
Seasons: One, Two, and There
Episodes: “Entourage,” “The Boys Are Back in Town,” and “The Abyss”
If Urth Caffé is where the Entourage crew goes to make casual conversation, Koi is where the serious business happens—at least when it comes to the often complicated, push-and-pull relationship between Eric and Ari, both of whom want only the best for Vince, but whose agendas are often misaligned. Since opening its Zen-inspired doors in 2002, the contemporary Japanese eatery has become a perennial place for power meetings. And it makes its first appearance in the series’ pilot episode, when Ari tries (momentarily) to play nice with Eric before putting the former “pizza boy” in his place. Over the next two seasons, the exact same table would serve as a battle ground for the duo, as they both made the case for the best decisions for Vince’s professional future. (Photo: Koi)
3. Toast Bakery Cafe
Seasons: One and Two
Episodes: “New York” and “Exodus”
Like a second-choice Urth Caffe, Toast Bakery Cafe is yet another low-key brunch spot where the boys can escape the luxe trappings of celebrity life. In the first season, it serves as a spot to reminisce about the good-old days growing up in New York (shortly before Vince is set to return home to shoot a new movie). In the second season, it’s the restaurant of choice for the boys to drop the news on Vince that his Aquaman girlfriend/co-star Mandy Moore is not quite over her supposed “ex.” (Screencapture via HBO)
4. The Ivy
Seasons: Three and Seven
Episodes: “The Prince’s Bride” and “Porn Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”
Anyone whose name has ever appeared on a movie poster, or who has brokered the deal to get that name on a movie poster, has no doubt lunched at The Ivy, which strives to protect celeb anonymity with its ivy-covered exterior (of course, it’s ground zero for paparazzi waiting to snap a photo to cover this month’s rent). In season seven, it’s where Eric and Vince meet with actor-turned-director Peter Berg, who agrees to direct Vince’s beloved Airwalker, and even agrees to cast Vince’s girlfriend (porn star Sasha Grey) in a mainstream role. (Screencapture via HBO)
5. Lucky Strike
Season: One
Episode: “Date Night”
The hierarchy of the Entourage crew was established early on in the show’s first season when, to celebrate the release of his new movie, Head On, Vince arranges for a night of bowling with the boys and their respective gal pals. But Drama’s date only has eyes for his little brother—much to both brothers’ fright. To prove that bowling is an all-ages activity, Lucky Strike pops up again when Ari takes Mrs. Ari and the kids out for a family night.
6. Morton’s
Seasons: Four and Seven
Episodes: “Sorry, Harvey” and “Lose Yourself”
When it comes to power plays, steakhouses rule in Hollywood. Some of the series’ biggest wheeling and dealing moments happen in between carefully prepared plates of meat. Case in point: the legendary Morton’s, which is where Sloan’s father, super-agent Terrance McQuewick, wines and dines Eric before asking him to sign a prenup in the seventh season finale. It’s also the restaurant Ari can’t rush out quickly enough in season four—so quickly that he inadvertently takes the wrong car home. (Screencapture via HBO)
7. Real Food Daily
Season: One
Episode: “The Script and the Sherpa”
If one ever needed proof for why steakhouses are the real power lunch places, just watch Ari’s reaction to the fully plant-based menu at Real Food Daily. The scene is also a harbinger for why none of Vince’s friends were so pleased about his infatuation with new girlfriend Fiona, who turned him on to the mung bean.
8. Harold & Belle’s
Season: Five
Episode: “Play’n With Fire”
During Entourage’s fifth season, real life and fiction collided with a storyline that had Turtle dating former Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Sigler. In real life, Jerry Ferrara (who plays Turtle) and Sigler were, in fact, an item. And in one episode, she shares her favorite place for jambalaya: Harold & Belle’s, a Creole joint that’s been giving L.A. a taste of New Orleans for more than 40 years. (Photo: Harold & Belle’s/Facebook)
9. Canter’s Deli
Season: Six
Episode: “Berried Alive”
A boy’s night out at 84-year-old, 24-hour Canter’s Deli takes a turn for Drama, when generally slimy producer Phil Yagoda (William Fichtner) attempts to sell Drama on the idea of leaving his series, Five Towns, for a role on the new Melrose Place. The never-content Drama is intrigued. (Screencapture via HBO; video)
10. Il Cielo
Season: Three
Episode: “Strange Days”
Though Ari would never win any Husband of the Year trophy, the super-charged super-agent certainly is not without his charms—particularly when it comes for his devotion to his wife, even if he tries to hide it. In the third season, he makes his declaration pretty public when he interrupts Mrs. Ari’s lunch on the patio at Il Cielo to re-propose to her after 15 years of marriage. (Screencapture via HBO)
11. The 101 Coffee Shop
Season: Seven
Episode: “Buzzed”
The Entourage boys know all of the best old-school diners in Los Angeles—including the historic 101 Coffee Shop, with its vintage décor and nostalgia-inducing brown-leather banquettes. It’s here that a newly entrepreneurial Turtle attempts to pay the bill after breakfast with Drama and E—only to have his credit card declined (and learn that there’s been $10,000 charged to it). (Screencapture via HBO)
12. Geoffrey’s Malibu
Season: Eight
Episode: “Home Sweet Home”
After hitting rock bottom at the end of season seven, Vince rolled into season eight clean and sober and ready to head home from rehab. To celebrate, the crew stops at Geoffrey’s, a Malibu mainstay on the Pacific Coast Highway with some seriously enviable views—views so enviable that they were utilized in season six’s “Give a Little Bit” episode (it’s where Eric proposes to Sloan). (Screencapture via HBO)
13. The London West Hollywood
Season: Eight
Episode: “Motherf*cker”
In the appropriately titled season-eight episode “Motherf*cker,” Eric meets up with Sloan’s former mother-in-law for a friendly discussion about their exes with a drink at The London West Hollywood. The evening ends elsewhere…and the title tells you all you need. (Screencapture via HBO)
14. Spago
Season: Three
Episodes: “Gotcha!”
Wolfgang Puck’s perennial celebrity-magnet appears twice in Entourage’s third season, once in the “Crash and Burn” episode (where Turtle pitches himself to represent Saigon, and Drama pitches himself as a client to Ari) and again in “Gotcha!”, in which Eric tries to smooth over the post-coital awkwardness between Vince and Amanda with some of Puck’s famous eats. (Screencapture via HBO)
15. The Bazaar by José Andrés
Season: Eight
Episode: “Motherf*cker”
As Entourage (the series) came to its end, Vince experienced one of his most character-changing moments at the SLS Hotel’s signature restaurant, The Bazaar by José Andrés, which is where he first meets Vanity Fair writer Sophia, who is interviewing him for the cover. While he tries his best to be charming throughout the interview, she sees him as just another insecure actor trying to flirt his way into a writer’s good graces—and writes her profile accordingly. Except she read Vince’s interest in her all wrong, and he spends the latter episodes of the series trying to change her mind (even tracking her down at Cleo at the Redbury, another SBE hotel). In the end, the guy gets the girl. But we all know that even in Hollywood, a Hollywood ending isn’t always meant to be. (Photo: The Bazaar by José Andrés / Facebook)