Coastal Luxury Management schemes and dreams up Los Angeles Food & Wine 2.0.

It’s midnight in the city of angels. Much of the metropolis sleeps. But Carmel’s Rob Weakley lopes over the urban asphalt of Los Angeles’ downtown and into Tuesday morning, a Monterey County hospitality tastemaker doing inhospitable things to his legs and lungs. For those familiar with his regimen around his hometown-by-the-sea, this qualifies as an quasi-Olympian effort, perhaps inspired by the onrushing London Games. (Only… no.)


When he returns to the apartments his New Monterey-based Coastal Luxury Management occupies, spaces adjacent to downtown’s L.A. Live multiplex of restaurants, hotels and pro sports venues – and CLM being the same folks who bring you Pebble Beach Food & Wine, Restaurant 1833 and Cannery Row Brewing Company – he finds the team doing everything but snoozing as they ready for Aug. 9-12’s second annual L.A. Food & Wine. 


VP of Operations Anan Menon is diagramming dozens of chefs like Daniel Boulud and Hubert Keller at the grand tastings in such a way that fresh seared dorado isn’t pushed next to, say, a heavy Cab. Brand Relations Veep James Velarde is working with the arriving powerhouses – First load in is when? Deliveries! Which kitchens? Lexus, let’s activate these ideas! – as unusually talented usual suspects like Sarah Potter and Weakley’s co-founder David Bernahl hustle to sequence elaborate schedules and shuttles themselves.


Last year Bernahl had this to say on an opening-night stage he shared with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, American Idol’s Randy Jackson and restaurant mogul Wolfgang Puck: “This has been two years in the making, plotting and planning. It’s the first citywide event of its kind in the most exciting food city in the country.” 


As they did with Pebble Beach Food & Wine, CLM got opportunistic by teaming with Puck, whose preceding American Food and Wine Festival contacts helped lay LAFW’s foundation, then got ambitious by blowing things up to unprecedented places. 


It equaled incredible at every twitch of the tastebud. Lavish lunches sold out from Manhattan Beach to Mid-Wilshire. Point Pinos Grill’s Dory Ford directed traffic at the Brews, Blues N Que with Guy Fieri and Uncle Kracker on the Santa Monica Pier. A 7-foot drag queen reportedly boogied with pastry chef Sherry Yard on top of a Lexus as ?uestlove spun tracks at Saturday’s “Decadence” party. Roederer Estate President Gregory Balogh was among the mystified: He said he crashed out with seven LAFW bracelets on his arm – on a school night.


Take the pinnacle moments and powerhouse talents of PBFW and multiply them across twice as many events and 10 times the territory, add foie-gras-lollipops-dusted-with-watermelon-Pop-Rocks, throw in enough red carpet to fill 20 mansions, sprinkle with rock stars and you have an idea of what LAFW looks and tastes like.


Year two looks like four different über-events going on at once, with Beverly Hills, L.A. Live! Downtown, Santa Monica and Hollywood each anchoring their own universe of dinners, demos and gatherings. Foodie celebrities including Giada De Laurentiis and Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods)) will headline events, but it’ll be MoCo homespun chef-studs like John Cox, Cal Stamenov, Ben Brown and Levi Mezick who reserve more memory banks.


Meanwhile, Weakley aims for more Olympianism, whether running through urban L.A. or scheming Champagne-style showdowns.


“It’s year two,” he says. “We’re trying to lose our freshman 15… I think we could do Olympics with [participants] Krug and Dom Perignon – hurdles with bottles.” 


QUICKBITES


• My earliest restaurant memory: oozy Plaza Linda quesadillas. This spring, three decades later, it pained me to see the place looking so funky – tacky decor, bizarre (and dingy) pink carpets and quesadillas for $17. What a difference a month or two can make: Over at the former Volcano Grill, the new Plaza Linda’s (659-4229) deck and fire pits, the vaulted ceilings inside and the still-new and sleek designs everywhere – from the bar to the bathroom – represent a major aesthetic upgrade. Talk about a seasonal switch. The food remains solid (and the quesadilla overpriced), with classic – and oozy! – chile rellenos and enchiladas near the top of my list ($9.95-$13.95 for a combo plate). And there’ll be no better place for entertaining music this side of Sunset Center.


• Plenty of peeps bemoan the progressiveness gap between Santa Cruz’s foodie scene and our own, but this much is true: They’ve got nothing like the monthly Independent Marketplace collision of produce, craft beer, art, music, food trucks and fun personalities – and now Santa Cruz and Sand City collude for the August edition, 4-9pm Thursday, Aug. 2. Anticipate across-the-bay vendors including Uncle Ro’s wood-fired pizza, Cruz N Gourmet Food Truck, Fogline Farms, La Vie Pure Foods Collective, Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery and Penny Ice Creamery, among others.


• Select 7-Elevens now have mashed potato machines.


• Liking the look of the three-course set menu for two at Cantinetta Luca (625-6500), the Weekly readers’ vote for best restaurant in Carmel. The first course is the house’s proudest, succulent house cured artisan salumes, followed by a pick of handmade pastas and wood-fired pizzas and two of desserts that include the gianduja chocolate tart, all for $49.95. That’s almost $20 off sticker price – but you have to strike Monday-Thursday, 5-6pm.


• “Think big thoughts,” American author and simplicity specialist H. Jackson Brown once said, “but relish small pleasures.”