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Airport-Adjacent Santa Monica Hangout Offers Pizza, Burgers, and Up Close Views

The new Cloverfield restaurant takes over for the former 30-year Spitfire Grill

A black awning shows off language for a new restaurant called the Cloverfield.
Signage for the Cloverfield
The Cloverfield
Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

The newest addition to the Santa Monica dining landscape actually carries with it some deeply historic roots. The Cloverfield, opening tomorrow for outdoor dining service at 5 p.m., sits just across from the Santa Monica Airport in the former Spitfire Grill space, which itself stood for more than three decades before closing last year.

Locals knew the Spitfire Grill as a casual hangout for beers and burgers and for watching the planes come in, and the new Cloverfield will keep at least some of the same tone. Expect thin-crust pizza, housemade pastas, burgers, steaks, salads, and the like, plus lots of California craft beer and cocktails galore, including some hard-to-source gin. Mary Thompson (Tallula’s, the Line) is on as the general manager and to oversee the beverage program, while Alfred Salvatierra will run the kitchen.

The owner, Sean Martin, is an Irish expat with a bar in London called the Pregnant Man, and he’s pulled the Cloverfield name from the history books of the area; The previous name of the Santa Monica Airport was, in fact, Clover Field.

The new setup allows for nearly 100 outdoor patio seats at a distance, with future plans for indoor dining once the pandemic is done. Reservations will open soon via Resy for the restaurant at 3300 Airport Avenue, and a small opening is planned for tomorrow night beginning at 5 p.m.

The Cloverfield

3300 Airport Avenue, , CA 90405 (424) 500-2075 Visit Website