Kettle Black Review: The Right Formula for Silver Lake

Kettle Black's housemade pappardelle with maitake mushrooms

A few months ago, we took a look at Sawyer, one of the newer additions to Sunset Junction. Now we visit its sister restaurant, Kettle Black.

The side-by-side restaurants share the same kitchen, though the menu and decor are completely different. At Kettle Black, the chef is Sydney Hunter III, formerly of French standouts like Petit Trois.

The pair has in common a similar grasp on what the area’s diners seem to want right now: eye-catching interior design, solid cooking and a casual, buzzy atmosphere.

Kettle Black is perhaps an unlikely name for a rustic Italian restaurant.

The small front patio is enclosed on three sides with a heater, so even in cool weather it’s a fine place to watch the passing fashion parade on Sunset Boulevard.

In the center of the room, a long tall table with backless stools might not be the best place for a lengthy dinner, but it’s fine for catching up with friends over drinks.

As at Sawyer, there’s a full bar available, so start with a refreshing gin, cucumber and Thai basil cocktail, or bourbon revved up with tea and amaretto. Happily, happy hour runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. every day of the week, with $4 Italian beers, $6 wine and several $8 cocktails along with a few snacks.

The dinner-only menu focuses on vegetables, pasta, pizza and a few mains like branzino, a flat iron steak with a pleasant char along the edges, or roast chicken.

Arugula salad at Kettle Black

Pizzas with toppings like potato and egg or prosciutto and arugula are fine, but we like to concentrate on the jazzed-up vegetables, and the very competent pastas.

Vegetables are some of the stars of the menu, with vinegar, salt and chiles giving a flavorful oomph.

Eggplant is charred to amp up its soft lusciousness, then slicked with tart-sweet saba vinegar and doused in garlic and chili flakes. A simple arugula salad is the perfect lemony foil to rich pasta dishes, topped with a flurry of almonds, pecorino cheese and pickled chilis.

Cauliflower goes far beyond the familiar roasted or fried preparations that have redeemed the once-boring vegetable’s reputation. Fried capers, pine nuts, pickled raisins and savory bagna cauda (anchovy sauce) turn the vegetable into an umami bomb.

Another star of the menu is pappardelle, with housemade noodles that have just the right bite and a dusky sauce of maitake mushrooms swimming in nasturtium butter.

limoncello cake at Kettle Black

For dessert, Italian-accented sweets like limoncello cake strewn with fresh berries or panna cotta with stone fruit keep things light and refreshing.

Kettle Black’s menu isn’t large, and the food isn’t incredibly ambitious, but the restaurant does exactly what it sets out to: create a lively spot that works for both drinks and snacks or a full dinner, with food that won’t leave you feeling weighed down.

Kettle Black
3705 W. Sunset Blvd.
Silver Lake

All'Acqua Opens in Atwater With Artisan Pizza, Pasta and Salumi

All'Acqua is now open on Glendale Blvd. in Atwater

The folks from Barbrix have been remodeling the former Acapulco spot on Glendale Blvd. for some time and this weekend, they unveiled All'Acqua, the Italian-accented sibling to the Silver Lake wine bar. At one frazzled point in parenting, I was pretty happy to find both a margarita and a kids menu, but Acapulcos are for the suburbs, not for up-and-coming Atwater. All'Acqua is more more in line with the neighborhood's needs for a casual but buzzy spot for supple artisan pizza, a variety of pasta dishes, a few main courses and a good-sized salumi and cheese selection. There's a full bar with cocktails like the Eastsider and the Farmers Market Special, a wine list as interesting as Barbrix's and several craft beer taps. Our early tasting of the pizza was very promising, especially the clam and the zingy Diavolo!
Here's a link to the full menu.

Speranza: Why Do People Love Silver Lake's Secret Italian Spot So Much?

Speranza's discreet exterior

Speranza isn't really secret -- it's been around for several years and has a smattering of reviews on Yelp, but it flies pretty far under the radar. Maybe it's the industry crowd that would prefer not to have the word get out, but the Hyperion Ave. spot definitely keeps things on the down-low. EatingLA doesn't have a problem with that -- but this place doesn't wow me the way it does many other locals. Here's the Los Feliz Ledger review:
Speranza is well-known to a certain set of Silver Lake-Los Feliz residents, and yet almost unknown by anyone else. Its funky vibe and well-executed Italian food make it a favorite spot for many locals, some of them of the celebrity variety.
Not only is the outside of the restaurant along Hyperion covered in orange plastic sheeting, with no visible sign, but there's no website, Facebook page or Twitter feed. And that's just how its low-profile patrons like it. (The owner's other nearby spots, Hyperion Tavern and O Banh Mi, fly equally under the radar.)
    Speranza was treasured in its first few years for its BYOB, free corkage policy, but after getting a liquor license back in 2010, the restaurant introduced a fairly pricey but well-selected list of Italian and domestic wines. Now they ask that you don't bring wine at all, so paying a corkage fee isn't an option.
    Behind the orange curtains, most of the seating is on two patio levels with bare, cafeteria style tables, simple wood chairs and numerous shaggy potted trees that succeed pretty well at making diners forget busy Hyperion Ave. outside. On chillier nights, plaid blankets on the chairs and outdoor heaters keep it cozy on the patio, a good thing since there are only a few tables actually inside the restaurant.
    While some couples find the funky intimacy romantic, there's also plenty of groups seated at long tables and families with children, especially earlier in the evening.
    Everyone loves the tangy sourdough bread served with a spicy dipping sauce in small bowls.
Start with a salad like fennel with pears and pine nuts or caprese, or an Italian classic like prosciutto and melon, carpaccio or burrata.
    Fresh pasta is the main draw, in dishes like fettucine al pesto and linguini with clams, though dried pasta works well too in dishes like Bucatini amatriciana, with a smoky bacon flavor and a hint of spice. Spaghetti with bottarga (dried cod roe) and anchovies sounds intriguing but is oddly bland, considering its strongly-flavored ingredients. Also popular are squid ink pasta, squid ink risotto and lobster risotto. Gluten-free pasta is available on request.
    Basic but properly-cooked swordfish comes on a large bed of arugula, a good choice for carb avoiders, while the branzino is served deboned. Though many people choose pasta or risotto for the main course, several other proteins include grilled lamb chops, veal chops, shrimp and crab legs.
    The film-industry intensive patrons aren't too focused on dessert -- the short sweets menu includes the inevitable tiramisu and one or two other selections like chocolate-covered peanut butter balls.
    Prices are moderately high for modest portions in a setting that's doesn't favor fancy table settings or aesthetically-pleasing plating.
    Speranza can be a tricky place to like. If your friends are happy to feel like they're in on a neighborhood secret, then you'll probably love it too. If you can make a solid bowl of pasta at home and prefer to eat indoors with tablecloths, then possibly it's not the restaurant for you. 

Speranza, 2547 Hyperion Ave., 323-644-1918

Maxmiliano: Brunch and patio coming soon to Highland Park's new Italian hideout

Herbs for the cooks are grown on the patio, which will soon be open for diners

Highland Park residents were long overdue for an alternative to Good Girl Dinette, the York and the old-school Mexican choices, and with the arrival of Andre Guerrero's casual, lively Maxmiliano, the restaurant scene has taken a huge step forward. It can be hard to find an Italian restaurant that doesn't have the same menu as every other one, but Guerrero is keeping things interesting with a large selection of appetizers and salads, several creative pizzas, a clutch of excellent homemade pastas and a handful of carefully-wrought mains. The Oinkster and former Max owner treated us to a tasting of all these dishes but we would have been happy to pay, since everything far exceeded expectations.

The room is casual with a green-lit wall above the open kitchen, a tiled pizza oven, a communal table in the middle and abstract strands of spaghetti on a red wall.

Among the pastas we tasted were cavatelli in a creamy mushroom sauce; tagliatelle in a meaty bolognese; and chicken ravioli with mushrooms. My favorite was angel hair pasta, with a porky, spicy amatriciana sauce packed with pancetta and jalapenos. Roasted beets were simple and satisfying with crumbled ricotta, and the market salad was elevated with several varieties of peeled cherry tomatoes. In just two weeks, news of the thick, juicy pork chop has already gotten around, so it sold out early Friday before we could order one. So instead we tried the chicken entree -- the bird doesn't get much love in restaurants, since people think of it as home cooking, but I would be hard-pressed to create a breast as moist as Maximiliano's, with olive oil-slicked spinach and a savory jus and crispy skin. Guerrero thinks restaurants, especially those with wood-fired ovens, tend to overcook their pizza so Maximiliano's pizza is more supple than crispy, with browned slices of garlic and potato on one memorable version. Matt proclaimed the cannoli ideal; I'm just not enough of an East Coaster to judge. What I did like: the affordable wines available in quartinos as well as glasses and bottles, the selection of local Craftsman beers, and the fact that all dishes are under $18. In a few more weeks, Guerrero plans to put tables and more edible plantings on the large rear patio and open for brunch. I'll certainly be back to try the coconut-lavender ice cream grown from the patio box's lavender, the cavatelli with pancetta and squid, and of course the pork chop.  

Maximiliano

5930 York Blvd.

Highland Park

323-739-6125

Domenico: A touch of class in Silver Lake

Beet tortelli at Domenico

If Elf Cafe is the ultimate new Echo Park restaurant -- earthy, earnest, filled with bearded guys and deer etchings -- then Domenico is emblematic of moneyed, older Silver Lake, where even modest houses are still going for a cool million. What the two restaurants do share is friendly, attentive service and the ability to bring your own wine, with no corkage. The interior of Domenico looks much better than when it was Michelangelo, very white and elegant. But most people want the sidewalk tables -- despite the occasional firetruck or dogfight, they feel more airy and happening (You might even have a Miranda July sighting, like we did.) Despite a few uneven dishes, there's something about Domenico that briefly gives you the illusion of eating in a cafe somewhere like Cannes, which is a pretty seductive illusion.
Owner Domenico Frasca was a former waiter at Drago, while his chef Michael Young has also cooked at Italian establishments around town. We first met Domenico at a special tasting dinner for writers, but the restaurant had such a pleasant feel I returned on my own dime a few weeks later for a friend's birthday. Many Italian menus make me scream with boredom, but Young's menu is quite a bit more interesting than the usual. Most of the pastas are homemade, and they're much better than the nettle risotto we tried.

Beet tortelli isn't as sweet as the more familiar squash tortelli, but it has a similar taste with a lovely purple hue. They do a nice job with fried zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, but the Caesar salad was a very sorry specimen with brown lettuce served on a warm plate. Lasagna with oxtails (above) is complex but not too heavy, but if they have a special of cavatelli with Spanish octopus, do not miss it. Whole grilled sea bass with rapini lets you continue the cafe-in-a-Mediterranean seaport fantasy a bit longer, but it's not that exciting. A special of Niman Ranch pork short ribs with blood orange is much better: not terribly Italian, but full of deep, porky flavor.
The verdict? As S. Irene said, Domenico is a big step forward for Silver Lake, and parts of the menu are quite good, while others need more work. But the service is excellent and the setting is pleasant, so try some homemade pasta and see for yourself. Prices are on the higher side -- our dinner of salad, two pastas and one main was $80. Bringing your own wine helps, although they expect to have a liquor license soon.
Domenico
1637 Silver Lake Blvd.
323-661-6166

Osteria La Buca ready for its close-up

While Osteria La Buca's remodel has been open off and on for several months, restaurant designer Kris Keith of the Spacecraft Group was finally ready last night to unveil the finished design. We liked the clever wine bottle chandeliers, the cozy upstairs fireplace and the vintage black and white photos on the walls, although we'll miss the tiny, charming original room. That room is now part of the entry patio with a few tables, shown. The main room is bigger but still intimate, and the upstairs room looks like the perfect canoodling spot on chilly evenings. We sampled quite a few dishes -- truffle ravioli and fritti misti were standouts, although I'm not sure if they're on the regular menu. Also good were arancini, several pizzas and calamari in tomato sauce. Pizza prices seem about the same, but some of the other dishes are a bit higher. Oh well, maybe it will actually be possible to get a seat now that there's more than five tables. Viva La Buca!

Little Dom's: What's up with the ladies' room?

Looking for a place to have a really intimate chat with your galpals? Look no farther than the communal ladies' room at Little Dom's, which features side by side commodes for conversational ease. At first I thought maybe one was a bidet, but no...so what's the deal with these?

Anyway, we had a quick taste of the new Little Dom's the other night...it was super-crowded with insanely hirsute dudes, cute young things, and everyone else in Los Feliz who has eaten at Farfalla one too many times. After a rather lengthy wait despite our reservation, the hostess kindly sent over two glasses of Prosecco to ease our pain, which was a nice gesture. Matt, who liked the old-fashioned Italian East Coast style menu, was very happy with how his meatball and mozzarella sandwich, served on a panini-type roll, held together as a unit without dissolving into messy pieces like many meatball sandwiches. OK, maybe $14 is a little pricey for a meatball sandwich, but it came with an arugula salad on the side, and of course you're also paying for those cool vintage speakers and kitschy fish on the walls. I had two appetizers -- first was a ring of baby beets topped with a meltingly good round of burrata, the creamy flavor nicely cut by the light vinaigrette on the beets. The other appetizer was shrimp and fried artichokes with a mint-laced dipping sauce, and it was like the best possible bar food -- bits of fried artichokes and shrimp dipped in the lemony sauce were just the sort of tapas-like thing I love, although I could probably have eaten twice as much of it. I like how the menu toggles between basic stuff like spaghetti and meatballs and more modern dishes like bluefish with cavolo nero, although one more interesting pasta might be welcome. We just wanted a light meal, so no dessert, but butternut squash fritters -- now that sounds tempting.
With its comfy, instantly-aged decor and casual buzz, Little Dom's is a welcome addition to the neighborhood -- but make a reservation if you want to dine between 7:30 and 8:30.

Taste test: Even Eating L.A. goes to Mozza

If you don't mind eating a decadent meal on a backless stool, it's not too hard to snag a seat at Osteria Mozza's mozzarella bar. At 7 on a Friday night, the restaurant is fully booked, but just a few people are waiting in the bar. I like the marble counters and cool blue color scheme much better than Pizzeria Mozza's burnt orange walls. While I waited for Kathy, I ordered a potent and tasty cocktail made with bourbon, fennel honey and lemon -- like the hot toddies I used to make at bedtime, only chilled and refreshing. Once we were seated, sommelier David Rosoff helped us choose a reasonably-priced Barbera which proved an excellent foil to our extremely rich dishes. We watched Nancy Silverton assemble all manner of burrata-laced goodies and our crostini with burrata, bacon and escarole arrived (top photo). I'm a sucker for wilted escarole, and these were some rich little morsels. Grilled octopus with potatoes, celery and lemon was the only somewhat light dish we tried, and I could eat this every day. I've never had such tender, meaty octopus, and the lemony dressing cut the rich flesh perfectly. As I often did when I travelled in Italy, much to the horror of Italian waiters I'm sure, we had appetizers and pasta instead of a meat course, even though the grilled orata looked pretty choice. At some point, director Ron Howard settled in behind us with three young writerish fellows in t-shirts with slogans, proving again that you can almost never be too casual in L.A.
I had the orecchiete with sausage and chard which was as rich and delicious as our first courses, if not quite enough for a whole table as S. Irene wrote. If you're sensitive to salt, the food here might seem over-salted, but as I'm kind of a salt hound it was just right for me. Kathy's garganelli pasta had a meaty ragu that was a little too meaty-tasting for me; we ended up each preferring the one we had chosen. We also had a delicious beet side dish with a wonderful salsa verde -- sort of like a pesto that works better for beets. When it was time for dessert, all I could think of was the butterscotch pudding from Pizzeria Mozza, which isn't on the menu at the Osteria, so suddenly nothing else appealed to me. Portions are on the modest side, but for $120 including an entire bottle of wine and two cocktails, that was certainly one of the best meals I've had in a very long time. Service was extremely attentive and competent, even if you're not Ron Howard, who had the mussels, by the way.
Minor cavils: Nearly two hours straight of the Beatles Greatest Hits doesn't strike me as the best restaurant music, and when the Beatles finally ended, the soundtrack changed to even-louder undistinguished rock 'n roll. Is this a Mario thing? In a New York-feeling place like this, maybe some great vintage jazz or something more instrumental might work better. And those backless stools are a little rough for a two-hour meal. That is all.

Taste test: Fritzie's in the Los Feliz Ledger

Naturally, as someone who aspires to be a fair restaurant critic, I don't like removing reviews. But I'm going to take down the Fritzie's review I excerpted here and explain what happened. The publisher of the Los Feliz Ledger is one of the few small newspaper owners anywhere who is brave enough to run both positive and not-so-positive reviews. But publishing a neighborhood newspaper is a delicate balancing act, and not surprisingly, the owners of Fritzie's were not pleased with my largely negative review. I stand by my review. It's in print, so pick up a Los Feliz Ledger if you want to check it out. I think the first two sentences of my post pretty much summed it up, anyway, so I'll leave it at that.
"I hold Italian restaurants to fairly high standards, because they're usually not cheap. Fritzie's (formerly Da Giannino) was no exception -- too expensive for what amounts to pedestrian Italian food stuck in the 1980s."
I'm not out to ruin anyone's business -- I just think it's a shame that some restaurants aren't trying as hard as we wish they were.
OK, let's move on. Clearly the blog and the Ledger are two different things and from now on I'll keep that in mind. We've got one positive comment, one not-so, and I think I'll leave it at that.

The inevitable Mozza review

You've all heard enough already about Mozza -- Mario Batali helped with the menu, but hasn't been there since it opened; Nancy Silverton from Campanile is the other partner bringing her bread and pastry expertise; etc., etc. But now, the food. The doors to Mozza were still closed when we arrived for an early lunch reservation on the dot of 12, but in just a few minutes nearly every table was full, including all the stools at the wine bar and pizza bar. The room was decorated in a sort of restrained bistro motif with earthy vari-colored walls, immediately banishing all thoughts of the nasty tiff I had there with a boyfriend circa 1986 or so. The menu is short; mostly salads, paninis, a few sides, and Monday's main dish is chicken cacciatore -- all serving mainly to fill out the ambitious pizza menu with wonderful-sounding toppings of lardo, fennel sausage, salami picante and long-cooked broccoli.
First came our fried squash blossoms with ricotta, perfectly crispy and hot and stuffed with mild, creamy cheese. Next up was the white bean bruschetta with radicchio on grilled toasts -- nicely savory, but I tend to think the combination of beans and bread is a bit too starchy. Our pizza arrived while we were still working on the first courses, with a touch of char on the crust for authenticity. I'm not sure I can recommend the wild mushroom pizza -- it's a tomato-less pizza, and the taleggio and fontina cheeses were a bit dry. The overall impression was heavy on the well-calibrated crust, but a little light on satisfying gooeyness, although the wild mushrooms were tasty.
I barely had room for dessert, but when I remembered the buzz over the butterscotch pudding, I decided to give it a try. The pudding was a revelation -- covered with a layer of caramel studded with fleur de sel, the silky pudding isn't overly sweet or heavy. I devoured the entire pot before I had time to contemplate the lovely little rosemary-studded pine nut butter cookies on the side. That's just a first impression, but surely I'll be back again soon to delve deeper into the pizza menu and try some of the main dishes.