Chef Dustin Trani represents the 4th generation of the celebrated Trani Family to be an owner/chef cooking in San Pedro. He is best known for J. Trani’s Ristorante which is his Family’s successor restaurant to their original San Pedro establishment, Trani’s Majestic Café opened in 1925 in downtown San Pedro.
His latest venture (in the works since 2019) is the ambitious, Trani’s Dockside Station located in San Pedro’s historic waterfront in a vintage (fully restored and renovated) 1920 building that initially served as an immigration hall. In more recent years it was the local diner, Canetti’s Seafood Grotto, which closed in 2010 after a 70-year run. The exterior has been restored and preserved along with the addition of a striking, art deco neon vertical sign. Trani’s Dockside celebrated their year anniversary earlier in 2024.
Brunch is served on Sundays. Lunch is Wednesday through Friday and Dinner is available nightly from Wednesday through Monday.
Chef Dustin is one of the noteworthy chefs (25 high profile chefs for each night) for the upcoming Manhattan Beach Food & Wine Festival in Manhattan Village set for the evenings of Friday, October 11th and Saturday, October 12th. He’s working on serving a novel swordfish sausage taste with just the right texture.
Chef Dustin Trani joins us with all the update details for Trani’s Dockside Station.
(upbeat music) - And welcome back, it is the SoCal Restaurant Show. And we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until 12 noon, right here on AM830, K-L-A-A, the home of Angels Baseball 2025. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. And we're proudly presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce. As we've mentioned, we are previewing some of the wonderful chefs that are part of next weekend, the inaugural Manhattan Beach Food and Wine Festival. And one of the prominent chefs that's participating is a fourth generation chef and restaurateur from San Pedro. The trainee family is kind of a dynasty in San Pedro. And Chef Dustin Trainee is representing the younger generation of the trainee family. You know him best from Jay Trainee's Risterante, but having celebrated their year anniversary a little earlier in the year was Trainee's Dockside Station, which Chef Dustin, this has been a work in progress for him for a number of years. And I know he was delighted to have it open. And with that as background, it is a pleasure to welcome Chef Dustin Trainee to the SoCal Restaurant Show. Chef Dustin, good morning, but I understand you're not at the restaurant. - Yeah, can you believe it? First of all, my friend, it's great to talk to you. Only the pleasure, you're one of my favorite people. - Well, Dustin, thank you. I love family-owned restaurants. I love the history of your family in San Pedro. You know, you with the Papadakis family, you're kind of stalwarts in the restaurant business. And I love the fact that, you know, your dream was to get Trainee's Dockside Station open, you're in a historic building and a redeveloping area of San Pedro. And boy, when you were able to realize that just a little over a year ago and have it realized so magnificently with the architectural appointments that you have, restoring that terrific neon sign that you have on the exterior of your building. And you get a lot of your fresh seafood in a very unusual way, which we'll talk about in a minute. - But, you know, what's not to like? - Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it was a little bit of a process getting a going, especially with being in a historic building. But I couldn't be happier with the results. The themes, it's just been a great, great all-around effort to put together such a beautiful restaurant with such a amazing historic food-driven community, like San Pedro, a little known spot in Los Angeles. A lot of people don't know the 110 South down here in the Port of Los Angeles. Well, you know, Chef Dustin, your reputation is starting to spread. There are more destination restaurants that are in San Pedro. There are more that are on the way. A lot of redevelopment along the waterfront. So definitely good things are happening. But talking about the great Italian tradition of San Pedro, because San Pedro really was founded by Italian fishermen, some Croatian fishermen, but mainly Italian fishermen. Tell us where you are right now, because yet again, another food festival. And this one today, I think, is open to the public for free. So tell us about it. - Absolutely, we're down here at Fiesta, Italiano, and it's down here in San Pedro on 6th Street. It is 100% open to the public for free. Beautiful vendors, some great shops, all the local restaurants, and some outside restaurants that are in here participating in the historic Little Italy of Los Angeles, which we debuted about three years ago. So it's such an amazing thing. There's culture, there's music, there's opera singers, there's dancers. And, you know, nothing more I'd rather do than be down here in San Pedro. It's beautiful weather today. Anybody out in the area, come on down and come check it out. It's beautiful. We're doing squash blossoms today. Little tempura, squash blossoms, which house made with lots of cheese and some honey and a summer genre at Jano. - Chef Dustin, just a little nibble. And, you know, you're down there with some of your colleagues, particularly the San Pedro fish market, which is another family dynasty that's in the process of expanding, and also totally rebuilding their flagship restaurant in San Pedro. And when that development is done, that's gonna be something pretty exciting. You know, just find a parking place, right? - Oh, yeah. That's the biggest thing is that everybody goes, "Where are they gonna park?" And lots are going away quick here. Like, people are swooping them up. And that's a beautiful sign to see that the development that comes. And the further development of the West Harbor, which is the old port the call that's been redone. And that's where the San Pedro fish market is gonna be moving into. And it's coming out amazing, along with the 6,000 feet amphitheater, headed by the need of landers that did the Greek theater. It's just so much going on, so much going on the San Pedro. And it's really, really nice to see you. - Now, Chef Dustin, since we last talked, you have added Sunday brunch. So tease us a little bit about what's on the menu for brunch because, of course, everybody loves brunch. - Yeah, yeah, that's, it's one of those things that like, we had, if we were gonna do it, we were gonna do it like a little unique and kind of put our own spin on it. One of the biggest sellers I'd have to say is our, we make this beautiful French style bread at G-training, at the other restaurant, it's a jalapeno and cheddar bread. So we picked that with the jalapeno cheddar cheese, spoken of cremon glaze, which is a creme brulee mixture, and then make our French toast out of it, and put fried chicken on top, the brown butter and some fried sage, and it's absolutely spectacular. - That definitely sounds like a good brunch dish. Now, Chef Dustin, I teased it earlier, but in terms of getting the freshest fish that you possibly can get, I actually, some of the fish you use comes to a trainee's dachside, not by truck. It's actually wheeled across a parking lot. Can you share that little tidbit with us? - Yeah, it's, but that's the amazing thing about being at DocSci 'cause we are adjacent to the wholesale fish market, literally 25 feet away from the dock, where the boats are unloading, and there's been several times where I'll call over. They show up at 1230 at night, and we're closing up the restaurant, but hey, what came in tonight? Oh, we just unload some local hard-wing swordfish. Oh yeah, I'll bring a dolly over right now. And if you follow us on Instagram, you'll see a lot of that stuff, where at the middle of the night, we're willing to fish out of the, across the parking lot, right into the restaurant for service the next day. And just having that opportunity to do whatever local catch is born on. Like there's not very many restaurants that have the access to be able to do that and say that they can literally pull from the boat to the water, from the water to the boat right to the plate. - Well, in terms of the name of trainees DocSci 's station, Chef Justin, that DocSci just isn't a figment of the imagination. It's part of who you are and where you are. - Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And being like the immigration station that was the original Ellis Island of Los Angeles, just such a cool story to tell. - Well, you know, you might just take a moment, you're talking about the building that you're in. And, you know, give us a little bit more about that because again, as you mentioned, that's a big part of the history of San Pedro. - Yes, San Pedro was 100% founded on, you know, based in the community with a lot of Portuguese, Chlorations and Italian that kind of, you know, set up shop here wide because it reminded them of their hometowns and in Italy and Europe, as well as the big thing was to be in the fishing place here. So they were able to find worse on the fishing boats with such a massive, you know, fishing community and build there. But yeah, I mean, that immigration was opened in 1920 and still stands today and we were able to renovate it. It turned over a few different businesses, but the bones of it are exactly the same. And it's such a special feeling when you walk in there with the original beams and woodworking in there. It kind of like you can feel the history of it. - Well, Dustin, talking about history, you have a very distinctive long bar that is in trainees' dockside station. Give us a little bit of the history of that because you can't not notice it when you walk in the restaurant. - Yeah, so that bar there was originally in the mirror room, which was a legendary bar in San Pedro that later changed the PCs, but open in 1947, it's a serpentine, mahogany bar top, it's beautiful red, like woodworking and craftsmanship you could never find today. And the history of the stories and talking to bar trainers that worked there through the '70s and the '60s events and found out that it was one of Charles McCouse's favorite bars. We spent the remainder of the last 20 years of his life in San Francisco where he's buried. And they go, "Oh, yeah, bar number six." That was his, that's where he sat right there. - You know, nothing like a little living history. Now, Dustin, a lot of restaurants now are not doing lunch. At trainees' dockside station, I believe you're doing lunch Wednesday through Friday. What are some of the highlights of your lunch menu because that's definitely something to keep in mind. - Yeah, that's correct. Like, you know, we're just a perfect, such a beautiful open space with the patio. And once this went hand in hand, as the whole area developed, it kind of worked out great. So the highlights on it, we like to throw a little homage to the past. And we have a swordfish sandwich that my dad grew up eating at this place called the Little Fisherman, which is a little fish hut that was right located down in San Pedro by the fish market. And they use this beautiful swordfish sandwich, a little bit of floss, aioli, a little lemon. And that's what we've kind of done our interpretation of it and throw it back on the menu and call it the Little Fisherman. And it's a swordfish sandwich melanin style with this Preston brick and to give it a little more texture and a little moisture to the swordfish. And one of those in the calamari local calamari that we get in, it's such a diverse menu with a lot of fresh items, a little sashimi and salad options. And we have a pretty damn good bird, too. But part of my French, that we all are ribeye trimmings and do a short rib and ribeye burger that exists simple and perfect on a beautiful brioche run with market tomatoes from the Santa Monica farmers market. It's simple and delicious. All sounds good. Now, let's not neglect dinner. I believe you're open for dinner nightly, but closed on Tuesday. Do I have that right? Yes, that's correct. Tuesday is the only night at the restaurant start, as well as G trainings, it's dark on Mondays and Tuesday. Yeah, we do dinners and it's just an evolving menu that changes seasonally. And what's coming in, a little bit of some pasta items, as well as a lot of sashimi and krutos, depending on what we're getting from the bears. And a great raw bar that you see when you come right in the restaurant, definitely very appealing and enticing. Now, Dustin, you are part of opening night next Friday for the inaugural Manhattan Beach Food and Wine Festival in Manhattan Village. Can you share what's going to be on the trainees Docside station menu? Yeah, so again, when we were doing that, we were thinking about like, what can we do that's going to be something special that nobody else has done our scenes. So we're like, OK, you know, something we've been pulling around for years with is for a bit sausage. I know I've messed around with seafood sausage in the past, but could never get the texture right. So swordfish is a very meaty-- a meaty, I guess you could say, flesh. So we take that, we ground that up, and we're doing-- we're doing mixing it with some pork fat and emulsifying it. So we're seeing it and carrying it just like we would do like a regular counting sauce in. And we're serving it with a little ink aioli, some herbs-- we're calling it a dego crunch oil. It's very similar to a Korean crunch oil, but we've used in penalties and some Italian seasonings in it, and getting that same effect of that kind of spicy crunch texture with that sort of sausage. So that was something that we wanted to throw on there. That was really unique. Yeah, Chef Dustin, you know, just kind of usual run of the mill. I mean, that sounds delicious. Ladies and gentlemen, it is Chef Dustin training. It is trainees Docside station. Chef, before we say goodbye, the one thing we haven't done is what's the address of trainees Docside station in San Pedro? Yes, the trainees Docside is located at 311 East 22nd Street in San Pedro, California. And Chef Dustin, we will see you Friday evening at the inaugural Manhattan Beach Food and Wine Festival for opening night. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. Yes, when we return as promised Chef Andrew Grull, with his Ask the Chef segment, we're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce. Give us a minute. We'll be back. (gentle music)
