She's the baroness of bread that launched the wildly successful La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles. He's NYC's top Italian chef of Lupo and The Spotted Pig and one of the hottest culinary brands in America. It's the hottest restaurant opening in LA history offering a side-by-side pizzeria and more-formal Osteria specializing in everything derivative of mozzarella. The pizzeria is pretty spectacular, but we suggest you spend your time in the more discriminating Osteria offering a distinguished environment of distressed walnut floors and dark-painted ceilings more evocative of NYC than this gritty Hollywood street corner. The dining room features tightly assembled white-clothed tables surrounding a central mozzarella bar with near-perfect service. A rear drinking bar offers imported specialty vodkas and whiskeys with white-glove service that even includes the decanting of wines by the glass.
The Food
Hopefully you will have worked-out before settling into the cumbersome yet delicious dining experience. Meals usually take around two hours if ordering appetizers and desserts. The extended appetizer menu feels more like a tapas bar than formal restaurant, including a delicious grilled octopus or red endive and fennel tower constructed with oversize strips of Parmesan. The lengthy mozzarella menu includes numerous imported items and accouterments that are enough for a meal. When you arrive at a Batali restaurant you expect big things from the pasta menu, which truly delivers with miraculous oversize ricotta ravioli in brown butter sauce drizzled with egg. The sausage orecchiette and garganelli with Bolognese also impress with a textured flavor that’s still light enough to further indulge in the eventual entree presentation. Main courses include pan-roasted salmon, fig leaf wrapped Orata, and a grilled quail wrapped in pancetta. Perhaps we were too full by the main course, but the selection of entrees felt like a bit of a letdown compared to the opening acts. Dessert is a selection of dainty sweets including homemade gelatos, olive oil cakes and biscotti.
Last Word
Spectacular dining debut for Mario Batali and LA’s Nancy Silverton with glutenous be-seen mozzarella-theme eatery and pizzeria. Reservations book one-month in advance and fill-up within one hour of the reservation-line’s 10am opening.
