Vincenti: No Passport Needed for This Trip to Italy

The other night I had such a truly Italian meal at Vincenti, I had to keep pinchingmyself to remember I was sitting at the counter of a restaurant in Brentwood, not somewhere off the coast of Tuscany or Liguria.

After a three-month sabbatical in Italy, chef Gino Angelini is back and in terrific form. We were in luck that night, too, because a shipment of seafood had just arrived from Italy and from the Central Coast. Taking two of the five or so seats at the marble counter in front of the wood-burning oven, we asked for something light--no meat, just fish and pasta.

The young cook manning the grill and oven scurried around for a few minutes and then presented us with a stuzzichino or small bite of fresh sweet cuttlefish from Italy. Threaded onto a skewer and grilled over the coals from the wood-burning oven, its edges were ever so slightly charred, so that you got the char against the sweet tender cuttlefish. (They may look something like calamari, but the taste is completely different.)

Then came an enormous grilled Santa Barbara prawn in the shell. It had arrived still jumping, and was alive until moments before it was cooked. Garnished only with its brilliant red roe, it’s a lesson in freshness. Next was a small plate of cured Italian salami and real mortadella from Bologna, big as a plate, cut in fine slices and dropped next to the salami like a handkerchief. Eaten with some crusty country bread, these rustic tastes filled the gap before the pasta.

Oh, I forgot, there was some rapini showered with grated bottarga--that’s the dried pressed roe of gray mullet, a taste that can easily grow into an obsession, especially since it’s so hard to find in this country.

Forget everything you think you know about spaghetti al carbonara. Angelini’s version takes it to another level. First of all, it’s a swirl of perfectly al dente spaghetti (Senatore Capelli from Latini, which is made from a single variety of hard durum wheat and vintage dated just like a wine; what’s more important is the taste and quality of the pasta itself, which is as good as it gets). Each strand is cloaked in a heady mix of guanciale (cured pork jowl) fat, egg yolk and the barest suggestion of Parmigiano Reggiano intermixed with transparent crunchy bits of house-made guanciale. It wasn’t a big portion, about the size of my fist, but goes to show when something is really really good, you don’t need a huge amount for it to satisfy.

To finish, he sent out his pillowy gnocchi in pigeon ragu. Made from riced potatoes bound with egg and as little flour as possible, they are rolled across the tines of a fork to create ridges, the better to hold the ragu. Now ragu as the Italians understand it doesn’t mean a mountain of sauce. This one is a little fresh tomato, a few morsels of diced pigeon meat, including tasty bits like the liver and the gizzard, and a couple of spare parts--a wing, a tiny leg.

E basta.

BE THERE

Vincenti, 11930 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 207-0127. Open for dinner Tuesday-Sunday and for lunch on Fridays. Appetizers, $8 to $18; pastas, $9.50 to $20; main courses, $12 to $35. Valet parking.