You’ll Welcome the Quaint Charm of the Starling Diner

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

For most people, I’d imagine, heading to one’s “happy place” involves multiple, spliced images of the tropical variety: piña coladas served inside coconut shells, a hammock tied between two palm trees, tanning without fear of UV rays and/or visible stretch marks. My happy place is more like a short film, played over and over in my head, of a dinner I once had in Louisville, Kentucky, at Ramsi’s Café On the World. I can’t remember exactly what I ordered (I think it was lentil-based) or what I drank (I’m sure it was red wine) but that’s not the point—it’s a delicious memory of a night spent laughing, sharing stories and incredible food with my best friends. That night at Ramsi’s felt like I was returning to a home I never knew I had, and the restaurant seemed to feel it, too—everything, from our handsome and attentive waiter, to our priced-for-the-neighborhood bill (around $25 per person) seemed to point to an overall sentiment: See you, soon.

Walking into the Starling Diner after it first opened a few months ago, I felt the same way—only the situation had flipped in a way, I suppose, because this time we were the home and the restaurant was the guest. Occupying the space that formerly was the 3rd Street Café, Starling is a fine dining restaurant plopped amidst a quaint neighborhood of homes and apartment buildings. To its left sits a house. The same on the right. It makes for kind of a funny picture, if you’ve never been in the neighborhood before, and yet it works just right.

Owner Joan Samson kept this notion of a neighborhood restaurant—in its most literal terms—in mind as she prepared to open the Starling. It’s her third business, after a café in San Francisco (since sold) and La Galette in San Clemente, each playing a part in an overarching concept bent on, as Samson says, “providing a place where people connect and be part of the community.” In this regard, the Starling shines: from a long table reserved for single diners looking to eat among neighbors to closely placed individual tables that all border on a singular cushioned bench that lines the wall, the restaurant encourages—if not demands—you to at least nod at (if not talk to) the people next to you, definitely a welcome notion, I feel, in these closed-off, text message-over-phone-call times.

And then there’s the food. You’ll fall for the small details: cucumber-infused water (long a day spa staple, and simply refreshing) served in mason jars, squeezed-to-order orange juice (from a huge yellow juicer) and a staple of the menu, polenta mashed potatoes. The entrees, too, whether you visit at breakfast (look for the tofu scramble, chicken apple sausage scramble, and broiled French toast stuffed with Mascarpone and créme fraiche); lunch (try the ruby red smoked wild salmon sandwich or hand-carved turkey sandwich served with mouth-coating herbed cream cheese and cranberry sauce); or dinner (the moist, fall-off-the-bone coq au vin is a must-have) are all thoughtfully constructed, filling and . . . happy. These are true happy meals, pleasing to the palate as well as the eye, and the happiness radiates through the Starling’s “weird, cool teacher” décor (small school chairs mounted on the wall, a globe on a table, pencils and paper at the ready) and out into the street, making an already great neighborhood, well, a happy place.

“A restaurant is a living organism,” says Samson. “This building really wanted to be loved. I can tell the building is happy.” It is, and we are, which means the Starling Diner—even when it sometimes disappoints with spotty service, which any joint is bound to do when it’s in its infancy—has found a home.
Welcome, neighbor. I’ll be seeing you, soon.

STARLING DINER | 4114 E 3RD ST | LONG BEACH | 90814 | 562.433.2041 | STARLINGDINER.COM. TUES-WED & SUN 8AM-3PM; THURS-SAT 8AM-3PM; 5-9PM. DINNER FOR TWO, $30-$40, EXCLUDING ALCOHOL. BEER, WINE.

Tags: american, belmont heights, breakfast, Food, joan samson, starling diner