Saddle Peak Lodge

This restaurant started as a Pony Express stop before becoming Crater Camp, a cluster of rustic cabins where guests fished and hiked in the 1920s; the log walls, native-rock fireplace and mounted game heads date to a 1985 renovation. Chef Cooper Bogard, under owners Deep and Hargun Sethi (also behind Bombay Palace), keeps a game trio of wild boar, stuffed quail and elk tenderloin in madeira sauce on the menu, along with cast-iron johnny cakes and a one-pound ribeye cooked over open flame. It sits above Cold Canyon Road in the Santa Monica Mountains.