Roy Choi Waxes Poetic About Campanile

BFFs Peel and Choi

By Lesley Balla

"Campanile was like my first kiss. My first hand job. My first lay. My first hit. My first trip. My first step into manhood." That's a lot of love from Kogi's Roy Choi, who posted a not on his Riding Shotgun blog about the closure of Mark Peel's longstanding La Brea restaurant.

Choi says he never worked there but walking into the restaurant as a youngling changed everything for him. "I grew up around food but Campanile helped me move from immigrant to imma gent," he quips. He even wrote a whole chapter in his forthcoming book, Spaghetti Junction: Riding Shotgun with an LA Chef, about Peel and Campanile.

As Peel readies to close after tomorrow night's Halloween party, everyone who's anyone is paying their respects and get one more meal, but this is the way to eulogize: "Put your mutherfucking lighters in the sky." Indeed.