TikTok Excursions Part 2: Aperitivo Hour, Get the Burger @Cecconi’s

By notoriouslysinglegirl, May 16, 2026

I’m tough. Ambitious. And I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay. -Madonna Cicconi

“I want to take you for a ride in my convertible.”

Daniel the Grateful has been pestering me to go for a ride in his convertible BMW with Louise Vuitton branding since I met him that one day while I was walking on Rodeo Drive and he jumped out in front of me and asked “what did get?”

I showed him my bag

“Christian Louboutain. Nice. Open the box. Show me the shoes” he said.

I hesitated and didn’t want to unbox my delicate purchase. I wanted to savor the unboxing of my shoes for myself in private.

“I’m a TikToker. I have over 300k followers. Show me your shoes” he continued.

The only reason I decided to show him my shoes, was due to a story I wrote about a woman who bought a pair of red Christian Loboutains which changed her life forever.

That’s why I bought the shoes. Red ballerina style six inch silk stilettos . I wanted to see what would type of magic would start happening in my life.

Another character I wrote into my story came to life however, I never wrote in Daniel the Grateful into my personal screenplay. Although he’s genius as a character with multiple dimensions.

Most people who walk into my personal screenplay are pretty colorful meaning they’re “interesting.”

You just want to know more about ‘who’ Daniel the Grateful is don’t you?

And I could have never come up with what his car would look like if he would even have one?

It’s like someone else is writing this story from a different dimension. That someone created “Daniel the Grateful.”

After my lunch at Urth Cafe, I get into the convertible black BMW with LV logos all over it. In the back of Daniel’s car he has both his instagram and TikTok addresses saying he’s for hire. Again, marketing brilliance.

My life is like Alice in Wonderland

Or perhaps it’s more like Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz because of the red shoes?

Daniel drives me to my car parked a few blocks down the street.

“I’m so excited to drive you. You’re my sugar mama” he says.

“No, I’m not your sugar mama” I say as I’m looking for my car up and down Melrose.

“I have to go to the library and do some writing”

“Writing? We’re going day drinking “ he responds as he weaves in and out of traffic driving me to my car.

The Library

I give Daniel a quick tour of the WEHO library. Architecturally, it’s magnificent.

I sit down to write a quick email for a meeting and the lady sitting next me asks me to watch her Mac book while she goes to the bathroom with her Saint Bernard ( synchronistically I had just written an article about a Saint Bernard).

Suddenly, Daniel comes back and starts to give me a lesson in architecture regarding the buildings across from the library “the design center” that look like pieces you’d see in the video game Tetris.

And then we got kicked out of the library for being too loud.

Let’s go to the Abby

Daniel kept pestering me to go to The Abbey.

“Let’s not” I said.

After walking around Santa Monica Blvd through restaurants that smelled like a hot mess mixed in with fabuloso, we were about to settle on Tom Tom’s until I came up with another plan.

“Let’s go to Cecconi’s “ I say and off we went.

Aperitivo hour

At one point in time, I had heard that Cecconi’s was owned by Madonna’s brother Christopher Cicconi.

Although Christopher was big in the WEHO design scene, he was never the owner of Cecconi’s at least not on this timeline. Cecconi’s is actually owned by SOHO House.

The last time I was at Cecconi’s was in 2015 when I had brunch with a gal pal. That was the day we saw “Lando” aka Billy D. Williams sitting across the bar drinking Rosè.

Today was Aperitivo hour though there were seats at the bar they were solo and we couldn’t put them together. We sat at a cozy table adjacent from the bar and we both ordered Aperol Spritz’s and stuffed zucchini flowers.

The waiter was from Rome and I told him my parents were from Bari and he immediately started talking about cliff divers at Polignano A Mare.

“They get out of bed and dive into the sea right out of their apartment window.” The waiter romanticized the cliff divers as we scoured through YouTube to find clips of what he was talking about.

The stuffed zucchini fritters were amazing . They were so good I forgot to take a picture. A waiter passed us by with a burger and both Daniel and I took a whiff and knew we had to get the Aperitivo hour truffle burger special for $20.

You can only get the burger if you sit at the bar so Daniel the Grateful and I made it happen. The burger is a single patty burger we had cooked medium. It was juicy with porchetta, fontina and truffle oil. And yes it was worth switching seats and sitting at the bar.

The Discourse

Daniel the Grateful and I chatted about the business of writing. How he’d like to be an on the street type of Gorilla Journalist for my magazine. Again, a character who just inserted himself into my story and his literally“writing” a path for himself.

I started to chat about the other character who wrote himself into my story. The one who sporadically appears and disappears as if he’s some kind of time traveler.

“What dies he want?” I wondered out loud.

“Perhaps he reaches out to you when he needs some type of validation.” Daniel responds to my query about the other character.

“You make him feel seen in some kind of way.”

I paid the bill.

“See you’re my sugar mama!” Daniel the Grateful sang out loud as we walked down Melrose back to the library parking lot.

I bid Daniel the Grateful farewell. and off he went to his convertible BMW with plastered with Louis Vuitton logos.

TBC Part 3