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Il Forno and Cafe Jacoulet are part of
the neighborhood
The world is populated by three kinds of
restaurants. In Los Angeles, the most
important is the hot new restaurant-the
one. that just opened, the one that
everybody talks about, the one that nobody
can get into. Hot new restaurants, however,
don't last; sooner or later they either die
or turn into one of the other varieties.
Some become occasion places-the restaurants
you go to on your anniversary, on your
birthday or when your boss is taking you for
an expense account blowout. These are the
restaurants that invariably crop up on those
lists of the best places in town. Owning
such a restaurant is good for the ego. It
can, however, be hard on the pocketbook, and
most restaurateurs will tell you that all
they really want is a restaurant of the
third kind: the beloved neighborhood joint.
This is the kind of place that people go to
again and again, the place that they think
of as a home away from home. This is a
restaurant where the waiters know you, you
know the menu, and the chef knows your
tastes.
Some beloved restaurants become famous;
Spago and Chasen's are, after all, nothing
more than neighborhood restaurants for
stars. Most beloved restaurants, however,
have a different clientele. They are
frequented by ordinary people who live
nearby and like the way the restaurant makes
them feel. Each of these restaurants is a
reflection of its neighborhood, and most go
on for years making many people very happy.
Recently I ate at two such restaurants.
I knew I was a regular when
the free pizza finally appeared on the
table," - said the friend who took me to Il
Forno. One of the dozens of people whose
devotion to the place knows no bounds, he's
a regular who has been touting the place to
me for quite some time. Judging by the
numbers of free pizzas on the tables, he is
not alone.
But how can you tell which pizzas are free?
"It's easy," confides my friend, "This
one's not on the menu. It's called pizza
Ken, and you can't order it. See-it has no
cheese." Pizza Ken is a light, crisp crust
topped with a fine plain tomato sauce and a
few shiitake mushrooms. I can see how it
could easily become addictive; I'm already
wondering how I am going to get one the next
time I come in. How long before you become a
regular?
Probably a longtime; it looks as if this small, clamorous restaurant is
not in need of new customers. Most of the
people who walk through the door seem to
know one other. Kids hop from table to
table, plates are passed around, there are a
lot of waves and hugs. You are warmed by the
atmosphere, and it feels very good to be
here-at least once you get used to the
decibel level.
The people who own Il Forno have done a very smart thing; they have
created a trattoria for Los Angeles. It
doesn't look like an Italian trattoria: It's
a spare room in a shopping mall with an open
kitchen and too many tables squeezed into
too small a space. It doesn't taste like a
trattoria in Italy either: The food is pure.
L.A.-Italian, a mixture of very good pizzas,
good salads, eclectic pastas with an
American amount of sauce (too much), and
entrees that are characterized by their
robust flavors and generous size. But it
feels like a trattoria: unpretentious,
neighborly, overwhelmingly comfortable.
The pizzas are memorable. I barely manage to
prevent myself from ordering another.
Instead we have a . seafood salad made of
baby shrimp, octopus, Calamata olives and
squid tossed in a lemony dressing. If the
squid were cooked a few seconds less, the
salad would be even better. Pastas are
served in enormous portions. They are so
good that before I realize what I have done
I have finished off a plateful of what look
like torn ruffly edges of lasagna noodles in
a lamb-based sauce.
My friend insists on ordering tonight's special pasta as well. "The owner
says it's great," he says. It didn't sound
great to me; it sounded as if it contained
far too many ingredients. When the waiter
was explaining it I got as far as chicken
breasts, pine nuts, radicchio, sun-dried
tomatoes, shiitake . . . and then lost
track. We taste the dish, and sure enough,
too many ingredients. It pains my friend to
admit that the owner was wrong.
"But try this," he says, tucking into an enormous, and slightly tough
veal chop topped with a mountain of shiitake
mushrooms. "Isn't it great? We don't usually
order entrees," he admits, "usually we just
have salad and pizza
and pasta and get out the door for about $40
for two of us." He looks over at my plate,
spears one of my Hawaiian prawns in
whitewine and garlic sauce (very big and
very good) and mentions that we really
shouldn't miss the tirami su.
Of course 11 Forno has tirami su. It is, after all, on the
Westside where every hip restaurant is noisy
and no hip restaurant is without tirami
su.
It's good tirami su. But personally I'd rather have another pizza.
Il Forno, 2901 Ocean Park Boulevard, Santa Monica. (213) 450-1241.
Dinner for two, $30-$60. |
DECEMBER 10, 1989
