Osteria Mozza UPDATE - Los Angeles

Ah, the holidays...how I hate the holidays. The holidays have a way of bringing out everyone's crazy, and every year, there are so my kinds of crazy. The one crooked ornament on a tree will send one aunt into a frenzy, and a hastily stolen white elephant gift is grounds for a major meltdown. Keep your holiday gifts to yourselves, crazy people. I'll just give myself one of the best dinners in LA and call it a day. 

I may hate holidays for their drama, but I don't hate all the traditions. The Amuse Bouche, for example, is a classic that never gets old. It's olives and burrata just like the last time, and this time, it's just as awesome. A dark, juicy tapenade spreads its wings as salty olives ski across creamy peaks of burrata, a combination as ageless as making an angel in the snow.

Have you seen what Osteria Mozza can do with cheese? Skip the mozza tasting and dig into some of their craftier collaborations. The Burrata & Artichoke, for example, is a savor-haven. The braised artichokes are all heart, and the robust pine nuts and currants light up the branches of a mint pesto tree.

On Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen...On to the Burricotta & Spiced Walnuts... Whoa. Whoa those nuts are nuts! Each nutmeat is bold, encased in a thick shell of spices not so small. They add some zing to the otherwise mellow burricotta. The needles of fried rosemary crackle like a chimney fire, and a veil honey soothes the walnut burn.

The holiday spirit is all about sharing, 'tis better to give than to receive. Nothing nips that in the bud like a plate of Warm Black Dates & Speck. It's a plate made for multiple mouths, but gooey dates and hard-cured ham are a sweet and savory supremacy that I'd rather keep for myself.

The holiday spirit is all about sharing, and the SoCal spirit is all about...seafood. The Linguine stings with mighty ocean waves of fresh, briny clams and burns with the wrath of spicy Fresno chiles that make my 22 in-laws fighting over white-elephant gifts look tame. It looks like just another bowl of pasta, but wow, those peppers make it pop.

I once introduced a friend to snow for the first time in her life. She was from Florida, and she gaped at the two full feet of fresh powder like it was the prettiest sight she'd ever seen. The Goat Cheese Ravioli tastes like that. The cheese is sticky and smooth inside an al dente cocoon, and the five lilies captures a fleeting fragrance, a waft of joy you can taste.

Next comes a peace-on-earth Pappardelle. Good-will-to-men and women alike, as a soft tomato sauce snuggles under ribbon blankets with a hearty niblets of rabbit ragu.

The Duck al Mattone main is probably Osteria Mozza's greatest gift. The skin is super crispy, the fat crackles underneath, and it cackles as it sears the strips of fall-off-the-bone flesh. It's a regift; duck that has been done before, done exquisitely with its own special touch. Wrap it up in a smooth pear mostarda and break through the gristle with bites of sharp sauteed brussels sprouts, and suddenly, it's even better than new. 

We probably didn't need the side of Crispy Sunchokes, but actually we did. I am in love with this love-child of artichoke and potato, an-almost creamy root that finishes like chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Sharing is caring, and this dinner perfectly captured my holiday spirit. A magical dinner split between the love of my life and two of the best people I've ever known is the only way I see fit to celebrate all the things for which I am thankful. Tis' better to give than to receive, and sharing is caring, but I still disagree because they gave us all the leftovers, and I believe we got the better end of the deal.

Osteria Mozza - Los Angeles

They were good enough to appear on the Michelin star map of 2009. Let's see if they still got it.

Amuse Bouche: creamy, memory foam pillows of smooth ricotta with a salty olive accent on a crisp niblet of toast. Yup, they still got it. They really still got it. I don't know what they were like in 2009, but I am already impressed. 

I regret ordering the Mozzarella Tasting to start. Not because it wasn't amazing, but because it WAS amazing. The domestic mozzarella is springy and milky-fresh. The domestic burrata is beautiful, filled with a cream of all things pure. The smoked mozzarella is the same perfect mozzarella with a layer of woodsy soot. These domestics are undeniably delicious, but I feel like I barely scratched the surface. Next time I'll order some of the more aged or more imported options as I feel their menu has more range than the tasting can show.

The Octopus comes on a fresh, seafoam bed of...celery. I hate celery. There is something about the taste, and I can't stand the flavor that permeates everything. But this isn't just celery. This isn't just the stuff your parents cut up and put peanut butter on for snacks. This celery smells like the evening dew, a just-pulled-out-of-the-sunkissed-field kind of flavor. Each crunchy bite is full of California sunshine and the fertile ground it lights. The octopus itself is something else. It's as melt-in-your-mouth soft as a campfire marshmallow, with almost-fragrant pearls of tastebud-clinging flesh.

The Ricotta & Egg Raviolo is a legend here, and it's no wonder. If you have the audacity to serve a single raviolo at this price, it better be the best raviolo I've ever had. 

It is remarkable. Unforgettable in a pond of browned butter goodness, housing an entire poached egg yolk inside that erupts into an amber lava erupt that oozes around the plate. It seeps into every pore of the sweet ricotta, a yellow cloak around an al dente delight.

The Tagliatelle is a far more "boring" pasta, if you consider flawless ribbon-pasta in a melt-in-your-mouth oxtail ragu to be boring. The shreds are soft without being overly fatty, a dense, rich beef interweaving through sharp tomato. 

I was nervous about the entree Trout. Fish is easy to ruin and hard to make memorable, but this is a trout with clout. Fatty, pink, and pretty, it comes apart with a mere flick of a fork. It's cooked like a medium-rare, a salmon steak, bright pink and a little raw in the middle. It's so east to dry out a thick cut like this, but this one has juice to spare, as the veins of fat melt into the meaty flakes of flesh.

We are too full for dessert, and I almost shed a tear for a meal well-done. I could just sit there and keep eating forever. Endless dishes, so many small plates; there is not a single thing on the menu that I don't want to try. Never change, Osteria Mozza. If Michelin ever comes back to LA, it will be because of you and Providence.