Osteria Mozza

I was really looking forward to going to Osteria Mozza since Mario Batali’s Lupa in New York City is one of my favorite restaurants. From the reviews that I read, I had very high expectations of Osteria Mozza. After the dinner I realized that the Nancy Silverton dishes, especially those at the Mozzarella Bar, were the standouts. Batali’s dishes have not yet translated to the wonderful dishes that I know them to be. If you haven’t had Batali’s cooking before, you would probably find his dishes to be quite good by LA standards.

Our “amuse bouche” – a mozzarella involtini stuffed with fresh basil, roasted tomato, and olives. This was really good and would have tasted even better with the wine that I had ordered that arrived to the table extremely late.




Since it was still officially Summer, I ordered a Bastianich Rosato. It suited my appetizers well.

My grilled octopus salad:


This was really fantastic, though the octopus could have been slightly fresher. The salad was composed of braised leeks, fresh chives, boiled potato, and the octopus tossed with a vinaigrette. The vinegar was way too strong but somehow worked with the blandness of the octopus. I took most of this home and ate it the next day for lunch and it was just extraordinarily delicious. The vinegar dissipated somewhat and the flavors just really came together.

My Bufala Mozzarella with multi dippies:


This was just fabulous! I loved the mozzarella wit the assertive flavors of most of the dips. I thought that the romanesco worked the best as it was made with a nice smokey pimenton that complemented the mozzarella well. I also liked the caper berry relish (which I put on my cold steak sandwich the next day – delicious). I had a problem with the tapenade though: it had too much lemon essence in it plus a touch of what I think was lavender. That might go well on crostini but it was quite awful with mozzarella.

Bonus Pic! Burrata with Bacon and Sauteed Escarole:


My Bavette Cacio e Pepe:


This was good but was missing most of the unctuousness that you would find at Lupa (also, the cheese was melted through instead of being in soft, small crumbles). Despite this, I thought that this dish was executed well due to the perfect balance of the cheese and the pepper, and for the fact that the Bavette was perfectly cooked.

The Beef Brasato with Polenta:


My great-grandmother used to season her meatballs with some chopped celery leaves so I was excited to see them as a garnish on this dish. But unlike my great-grandmother, who used the leaves sparingly, Osteria Mozza put a big handful on a dish, and the leaves were so aggressive that it dominated it as opposed to augmenting it.

Most Foodie Chicks preferred Pizzeria Mozza to the Osteria. I have to agree but I will definitely come back and sit at the Mozzeralla Bar.

Osteria Mozza

6602 Melrose Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90038

http://www.mozza-la.com/

Mozza

The first appetizer to arrive: the bacala crostini. It was creamy and yummy, and not salty at all. The drizzle of fruity olive oil and the black olives were the perfect garnish.

And to drink with it a carafina of Rosato produced by Joe Bastianich's vineyard in Friuli:

I have to admit, I was all prepared to hate Mozza on my first outing there. Mumsy had already been a few weeks ago and she brought home some leftovers that were absolutely dreadful! "Nancy's" Chopped Salad had a virus killing amount of vinegar on it (plus it tasted like something that one would get at a big corporate chain) and the special sausage had a casing the texture of parchment paper plus the sausage meat tasted mealy. Mumsy said that the pizza was excellent but she ate it all before I could try it.

So I met a dozen women there this last Sunday for My Doppelganger's surprise bday party. Boy, was she surprised. And so was I by how damn good the food was!

One of my favorite things to eat is arancine. These arancine were smaller and more like suppli al telefono (so called because when you pull them apart the melted cheese looks like telephone wires):

Ooh, watch the bubbling roasted olives fresh out of the oven:

These smelled divine! However, there was too much rosemary in the dish and I thought that Lucques olives were too firm - I would have preferred a softer olive. But the garlic in the dish was fabulous and the oil/herb mixture made a great dunk for our leftover pizza crusts.

A must to order at Mozza, the chicken liver crostini with guanciale. The flavor combinations were great as were the contrasting textures of the smooth liver and the crispy guanciale:

Below, the squash blossom, burrata, and tomato pizza. This was good, but the burrata cheese was way too cold and clashed with the hot pizza crust. It would have been a lot better if the cheese were slightly warmer - it would have been a nicer contrast with the crust.

See the different pizzas that we ordered:

The special "pizzetta" in the second video had mascarpone, peas, ramps, and pancetta on it. I figured out right after I filmed the pizzetta that the weird flavor was anise seed. That pizza did not need that much anise seed, if any.

Here was the special on Sunday, the lasagne al forno:

I loved this but most people in our party did not because the dish did not conform to what they know as lasagne, i.e., it wasn't the Italian American lasagne, or what passes for Italian American lasagne in this City. This was perfect to me: the noodles were like silk hankerchiefs, a wonderful bolognese, and a creamy balsamella (bechamel); just a simple minimalist Italian dish.

The best dessert ever:

I don't mention it on the video, because I hadn't tried one, but the little cookies served on the side were absolutely incredible, nearly as good as the butterscotch budino. They were like a shortbread but I think that the fat was olive oil instead of butter and they had some carmelized pine nuts and fresh rosemary sprigs on top. Divoon!

I have to admit that Mario Batali's Lupa is one of my all time favorite restaurants, and while Mozza is not as good as Lupa, it's still an excellent restaurant.

Mozza

641 N. Highland Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90036

www.mozza-la.com