A.O.C., Mélisse take #1 in Zagat guide

For five years Cafe Bizou in Pasadena was the most popular local restaurant with Zagat's diner-voters, but no more. The new Los Angeles guide for 2006, out Tuesday, rates A.O.C. the most popular eatery around, followed by Campanile, Cafe Bizou, Cheescake Factory and Spago. The guide's bigger news, perhaps, is that the #1 rating for food no longer belongs to a sushi place. Chef Josiah Citrin's French restaurant Mélisse in Santa Monica (pictured) has risen to the top spot, just ahead of Matsuhisa and Katsu-ya. Sushi Nozawa was #1 for food last year. Guide CEO Tim Zagat, who lives in Manhattan, told me today that he has yet to eat at Mélisse, but hopes to try it before leaving the city Wednesday for San Francisco. He says that six of the ten top-rated restaurants for food here are still Japanese, but that the European-inspired kitchens such as Mélisse are making a comeback. On a personal note, it's kinda nice to see the #1 rating return to Wilshire Boulevard in the same year that the former Perino's location was turned into a hole in the ground.

The survey that goes with the new guide found that Los Angeles diners eat out more often than the Zagat survey-takers in any other city, but we are among the worst tippers and the biggest complainers about service. And everybody, including smokers, says they would eat out less if fuming tobacco leaves were still allowed in restaurants and bars. The list of Top Ten most popular restaurants is after the jump, with some other data: