Scarpetta

Sometimes I'm the worst employee ever. Except for the fact that I'm remarkably efficient at my job! I'm half serious, half kidding. 2012 is going to be a year full of achievable work goals. But first, I snuck out to a DineLA lunch at Scarpetta with Susie. Since it was the last day of billables for her (I have lots of lawyer friends, whom I don't talk to from the 25th until the last day of the month, every month) she was down to travel all the way with me. I basically just really wanted to try the infamous spaghetti and wasn't down to pay $28 a plate for it.

olive oil, butter, eggplant caponata

foccacia and stromboli (stuffed with salami and cheese)

braised short ribs of beef, vegetable & farro risotto

creamy polenta, fricassee of truffled mushrooms

wild salmon, butternut squash, farro, pumpkin seeds, black trumpet mushrooms

spaghetti, tomato & basil

chocolate cake, burnt orange-caramel gelato, espresso sauce

vanilla caramel budino, gianduja, chocolate sable cookies

Wow. Polenta=amazingness. So smooth and rich; I shudder to think of the amount of butter and cream that must be in there but it didn't matter at the moment. And the budino was also really good and decadent. I could have eaten a couple more servings of each dish, no problem.

And the verdict on the spaghetti? Very very good, but I don't know about $28 good. The sauce was well balanced, each strand of pasta was coated with the right amount of sauce, and there was a hint of spiciness afterwards that quickly went away. There is definitely copious amounts of olive oil in it, as I saw the next day when I went to reheat the leftovers.

Service was a bit spotty - the waitress was very attentive in the beginning but at the end of the meal, we couldn't track her down for 15 minutes to get the check. Also, the server/runner dropped food off and muttered the dish under his breath in one quick word (polenta, spaghetti, fish, short ribs) before rushing away. And the dishes here put down a bit hard as well, though I wouldn't say they were slammed down. Just left a bit of a bad taste for an otherwise great meal.

Scarpetta
225 N Canon Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210