West Hollywood is losing one of its best-known seafood restaurants, and the closing says a lot about how tough the middle of the restaurant market has become. For diners tracking once-packed restaurants and dining chains that struggled to keep momentum, Connie & Ted’s is the kind of local loss that gets people talking.
Connie & Ted’s, the New England-style seafood restaurant from chef Michael Cimarusti and his partners Donato Poto and Crisi Echiverri, is set to close July 1 after 13 years in West Hollywood.
The restaurant opened in 2013 at 8171 Santa Monica Blvd. and quickly became one of Los Angeles’ most recognizable seafood spots. It was more casual than Cimarusti’s three-Michelin-star Providence — but it still carried serious culinary credibility from one of the country’s most decorated chefs, a James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: West in 2019…