Restaurant: Osteria Latini [1, 2, 3]
Location: 11712 San Vicente Blvd.Brentwood, CA 90049 310.826.9222
Date: Dec 03, 2010
Cuisine: Italian
LA is full of good Italian places, and, well, it was date night and my wife loves Italian. So off we went to Osteria Latini which is one of the ten or so in Brentwood, most on San Vicente. About half of the places are actually very good and we often rotate around between them. The menu can be found HERE.
“BELLA SALAD, Arrugola, pears, dry cherris, goat cheese and shaved parmesan.”
“BEEF CARPACCIO, Thin sliced filet mignon with capers, parmesan and arrugola.” This was a very good version of this classic. The beef was excellent, there was a nice tang to the dressing, and the cheese was very good. I love good cheese.
“BOMBOLOTTI, Small rigatoni with tomatoes filet and basil.” Very straight up pasta.
“RISOTTO ALL’ARAGOSTA, With lobster in a light tomato sauce.” I’m a huge risotto fan, all sorts of risotto. This was an excellent seafood variant. You can’t see it, but there was a lot of lobster in there. And the light tomato sauce was indeed — light — complementing the fleshy lobster well. It was not particularly rich — but was very good. Given that I was coming off the gluttony of the ThanksGavin, light was a good thing.
Latini always gives you this little glass of lemon sorbetto mixed with prosecco at the end, regardless of whether you order desert or not. Given my penchant for lemon and my sweet tooth, I like it a lot.
This place is well above the median line for the already high bar of LA Italian (although it certainly has A LOT of company). They’re friendly, tasty, reasonably priced, and the chef has a very good touch.