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Chi Spacca – The Return

Apr24

Restaurant: Chi Spacca [1, 2, 3]

Location: 6610 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 297-1133

Date: September 13, 2022

Cuisine: Italian Steakhouse

Rating: Rich but delicious, a carnivore’s paradise

The little Mozza empire on Melrose now includes the Pizzeria, the Osteria, Chi Spacca, and Mozza 2 go. They do a great job with all their restaurants but their annoying corkage policy (2 bottles per table!) has limited my ability to attend. I only go to this sort of place with my wine groups (my wife being a near vegetarian) and so the limits make it near impossible. But anyway they do have a good (if pricey) Italian wine list and so it’s workable with 3 people, but no more.

Jeffrey loves this place — it’s one of his favorites in the city in any genre — and so he “muscled” us into this dinner (twist my arm!).

The small room.

The smoky in the room grill.

The menu.

Jeffrey is obsessed with sitting at the bar. It’s a front row seat to the grilling action, but it is warm, smoky, and “linear” in that having more than 3 people here means you can barely talk. In general I prefer tables.

From the list: Floral and mineral at the same time.

FOCACCIA DI RECCO. stracchino, extra virgin olive oil. Very salty but super delicious. Extremely hot. Crispy, but not as crispy as Jeffrey remembers.

PICKLED PEPPERS & ANCHOVY. Peppers stuffed with anchovy. Salty but delicious.

WARM ROASTED SQUASH BLOSSOMS. Tomato vinaigrette, basil. These could have been better. They were fine, but muted. I did like using the tomato sauce on the focaccia however.

SALANOVA LETTUCE. fines herbes, lemon vinaigrette. Salted, but a lovely fresh salad with nice hits of dill. I might have liked even better with a bracing more acidic (and less salty) take.

GRILLED OCTOPUS. pureed and fried ceci. Good, but the double chickpea stuff wrecked my gut.

From my cellar: Spectacular. Nose, middle, and finish. Lots of fruit.

GRILLED LAMB SAUSAGE. Peppers, onion, calabrian chile. Really nice char on the sausage and a bit of heat. The salad offset the fat a bit, but it was, you guessed it, a bit too salty.

Big! But round.

BEEF & BONE MARROW PIE. beef cheek, cippolini, funghi. Rich and delicious. Crust is really rich and there is that dark meat pie thing.

Look at all that meat!

PORCINI RUBBED SHORT RIBS. scallion, salsa verde. More or less Korean-style short ribs (except for the salsa verde). Maybe a touch chewy.

GRILLED SPROUTING CAULIFLOWER. bagna cauda, crushed lemon. Jeffrey didn’t like these, but I thought they were fine. I liked the butter thing, the char, and the crunch.

SPACCA ONION RINGS. garlic aioli. Absolutely great onion rings. Pretty much perfect. Flakey fry.

garlic aioli. This was good. And useful for jazing up other dishes besides the rings.

MILK ROASTED PORK LOIN. fennel pollen, crispy sage. Nice flavor but so fatty.

GRILLED MAITAKE MUSHROOMS. garlic, mint, lemon. Nice and smokey.

PEPPER STEAK. bacon, scallion, peppercorn, chive. Way, way too salty.

BUTTERSCOTCH BUDINO. caramel, Maldon sea salt, rosemary pinenut cookies. Close to a perfect dessert.

BANANA CREAM SLAB. cocoa nib and caramel jam. I ate around the banana itself enjoying the cream and crust.

Our wines.

On the grill.

Resting meats.

Overall, I thought the food at Chi Spacca was quite awesome, if not exactly authentically Italian. Certainly more to my taste than any normal steakhouse. They should import some pastas over from Mozza though :-). We really went to town tonight as all that food was for just 3 people! It was salty though. Extremely salty. And rich, of course.

Service was great too, and the atmosphere fun. My only complaint is with the bottle limit. The corkage is fine. But the 2 bottle hard limit, apparently strictly enforced, is quiet annoying. It totally breaks down for wine dinners. Their list has interesting Italians, but the wines are too young so it’s very difficult to order reds. Plus I just resent having to buy off wine lists altogether (beyond the occasional white or rose). If they priced a fixed $30-50 markup, and had my kind of wines, it would be fine, but they always use a multiplicative markup. I’m not paying $400-600 for a $200 bottle!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chi Spacca, Dessert, Foodie Club, Meat, Mozza, Steak, Wine

Seconds at Chi Spacca

May29

Restaurant: Chi Spacca [1, 2]

Location: 6610 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 297-1133

Date: April 17, 2017

Cuisine: Italian Steakhouse

Rating: Rich but delicious, a carnivore’s paradise

The little Mozza empire on Melrose now includes the Pizzeria, the Osteria, Chi Spacca, and Mozza 2 go. They do a great job with all their restaurants but their annoying corkage policy (2 bottles per table!) has limited my ability to attend. I only go to this sort of place with my wine groups (my wife being a near vegetarian) and so the limits make it near impossible. But anyway we managed to organize a small group after months of planning.

Chop chop.

The menu.

The small room.

The smoky in the room grill.

I ordered this off the menu.

2015 Bisci Verdicchio di Matelica. 91 points. Bright and crisp, very minerally. Nice summer wine. Great food wine too.

Grilled Octopus. pureed & fried ceci, parsley leaf. Very soft tender octopus. Basically as good as grilled octopus gets (which is pretty good).

From my cellar: 1974 Gaja Barbaresco Sorì San Lorenzo. 95 points. One of the stars in this tasting, the 1974 Barbaresco Sorì San Lorenzo is quite a bit fresher and also more powerful than the 1971. A huge core of fruit hits the palate, followed by savory herbs, leather, tobacco and smoke. The 1974 remains powerful and virile, with fabulous intensity for a wine of its age and a compelling interplay of tertiary nuance, dense fruit and plenty of structure to back it all up. Readers lucky enough to still own the 1974 can look forward to another 5-10 years of very fine drinking.

Focaccia di Recco. Fett’unta. Super light, crispy cheese “pizza.”

See the cheese, feel the cheese. Very very salty though.

Smoked burrata & roasted parsnips. garlic, thyme, honey. Okay, but arguably the most disappointing dish tonight (most were awesome).

1995 Tua Rita Redigaffi Toscana IGT. Big!

“Moorish” lamb shoulder chop. mint yogurt, cilantro.

mint yogurt.

A special salad of citrus, kiwi, etc.

2005 Château Cos d’Estournel. VM 97. I have been fortunate to taste the 2005 Cos d’Estournel three times in recent weeks and it has never been anything less than stunningly beautiful, as it is once again on this night. The interplay of dark, ripe fruit and the more mineral, savory-inflected nuances typical of Saint-Estèphe yield a compelling, wonderfully complete Bordeaux that simply has it all. An exotic mélange of graphite, gravel, smoke, cured meats and dark-fleshed fruits flow through to the explosive finish. Riveting today, the 2005 Cos will continue to thrill those fortunate enough to own it for several decades. Given its price vis-à-vis many of the high-flying wines of the year, the 2005 Cos remains a terrific relative value in its class.

Costata alla Florentina. Dry-aged bone-in New York steak. Solid beef.
2000 Harlan estate. VM 93-96. he 2000 Harlan Estate is in a beautiful place today. Soft, open-knit and nicely mellowed by age, the 2000 is absolutely gorgeous, with soft contours to match is engaging personality. Mocha, black cherries, leather and spice are all quite forward in this succulent Harlan Estate. The 2000 might not be a profound Harlan Estate, but it is a striking wine that is peaking today and that should continue to drink well for at least another few years.

Tomahawk Pork Chop. fennel pollen. The top (far) part is the pork chop itself, wonderfully tender and with a lovely flavor. The bottom long parts are the pork belly, similar flavor but WAY richer.

Roasted cauliflower. crushed lemon bagna cauda. Excellent!

Roasted potatoes. Lardo, rosemary. Flower of sliced crispy potatoes.

2004 Harlan Estate. VM 95+. Bright ruby-red. Superripe aromas of raspberry, currant and tropical dark chocolate. Sweet, lush and large-scaled, hinting at surmaturite and compellingly mouthfilling without coming across as heavy. This extremely ripe wine’s high pH seems fully buffered by huge dry extract. Finishes with big but lush tannins and outstanding palate-staining persistence. A bit port-like but with mineral and licorice notes giving it definition and grip.

Beef & bone marrow pie. beef cheek, cippolini, funghi. Wow! Like the ultimate beef pot pie — and I mean ultimate. Salty, though, like almost everything here.

Mashed potatoes.
The dessert menu.

1986 Château d’Yquem. 96 points. Deep honeyed gold colour. Nose of burnt carameled toffee, soaped new leather car seats and shoe leather, white shoe cream, apricots…very suave but complex. Palate is gorgeously honeyed, rounded, almondy burnished copper and with a medium-cut acidity to stop it getting cloying. Tooth-coating. Massive head-expanding resonance and reverberance and all so smooth-edged… quite silence creating. Wow! Hard to stop sipping. It just gets more head-expanding with more time in the glass and the mouth.

Banana cream slab. hot caramel. Even I loved this, and I hate bananas.

Butterscotch Budino. sea salt & rosemary pine nut cookies. OMG, I love these creamy puddings. I ordered an extra too just for myself.

Cocoa Nib Caramel Tart. whipped creme fraiche. Rich.

Seasonal Gelati & Sorbetti. Pistachio and I can’t remember what else.

Seasonal Gelati & Sorbetti. Passionfruit (great) and others.

Overall, I thought the food at Chi Spacca was quite awesome, if not exactly authentically Italian. Certainly more to my taste than any normal steakhouse. They should import some pastas over from Mozza though :-). From the menu I thought prices looked crazy, but the total turned out to be reasonable ($130 a person before tip) even though we went to town. Really to town as the above was for 6 people! It was salty though. Extremely salty.

Service was great too, and the atmosphere fun. My only complaint is with the bottle limit. The $30 corkage is fine. But the 2 bottle hard limit, apparently strictly enforced, is quiet annoying. It totally breaks down for wine dinners. Their list has interesting Italians, but the wines are too young. Plus I just resent having to buy off wine lists altogether (beyond the occasional white or rose). If they priced a fixed $30-50 markup, and had my kind of wines, it would be fine, but they always use a multiplicative markup. I’m not paying $400-600 for a $200 bottle!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (5)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chi Spacca, Corkage, Gaja, hedonists, Italian Cusine, Meat, Steak, Wine

More Meat – Chi Spacca

Jun30

Restaurant: Chi Spacca

Location: 6610 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 297-1133

Date: June 01, 2015

Cuisine: Italian Steakhouse

Rating: Rich but delicious, a carnivore’s paradise

The little Mozza empire on Melrose now includes the Pizzeria, the Osteria, Chi Spacca, and Mozza 2 go. They do a great job with all their restaurants (annoying corkage policy notwithstanding), and I’ve been itching to sink my canines into Chi Spacca for some time. When a plan earlier this year for the larger Foodie Club gang to go to Chi Spacca failed, we ended up at Spear instead, and despite that being a great meal I still wanted to get here. But because of the annoying corkage policy (a complaint I will continue to reiterate from my soap box), we had to wait until a small dinner (3 of us), this time nominally for my birthday.

Chop chop.

The menu.

The small room.

The smoky in the room grill.

From my cellar: 1989 Paolo Scavino Barolo Bric dël Fiasc. VM 95. The 1989 Barolo Bric del Fiasc (3-liter) is still striking for its freshness. Some of that is a factor of the large format, but standard bottles have also develop very positively. Here we find a classic flavor profile of tobacco, herbs, spices, plums and licorice with the depth, muscle and concentration of the modern school. The 1989 is a touch more layered and aromatically intesne than the 1990, with a little more length and overall complexity. Tar, smoke and licorice linger on an eternal finish.

Pickles. spring onions, carrots, fennel. Nice crunchy pickled vegetables. The acidity is a nice contrast to all the fat to come.

Affettati Misti-Daily Selection of Cured Meats. Calabrese salame, oregano salame. pork butter. That white stuff that looks like butter, pure lard (smoked and aged).

Pate & Terrine. butcher’s pate, trotter fritti. The fried things are stuffed with pig feet meat. Now, I’m not normally a fan of pig’s feet at all, but these were delicious (maybe because you can’t SEE the trotter). The terrine was also very good, classic country pate.

Bread for the meats.

Erick brought: 1979 Chateau Margaux. Parker 93. This wine is just now reaching full maturity, much later than I initially expected. It is a classy, elegant example of Margauxpossessing a dark ruby/purple color, and a moderately intense nose of sweet black currant fruit intermixed with minerals, vanillin, and floral scents. The wine is medium-bodied, with beautifully sweet fruit. This linear, more compressed style of Margaux possesses a good inner-core of sweet fruit, and a charming, harmonious personality. Although not a blockbuster, it is aging effortlessly, and appears to take on more character with each passing year. Anticipated maturity: Now-2010.

Burrata Primavera. Snap peas, carrots, mint. Very nice salad with good contrast of sweet and acidic.

Pane bianco. Fett’unta. Super light, crispy cheese “pizza.”

Whole Branzino. herb salad, olive oil. Extremely herby and fabulous, with an almost Thai like lemongrass flavor.

Grilled Octopus. pureed & fried ceci, parsley leaf. Very soft tender octopus.

2003 Di Prisco Taurasi.

Braised Lamb Ribs. Castelvetrano olive, preserved lemon. Nice rich lamb meat.

Grilled Lamb Sausage. Calabrian peppers, roasted onion. Basically Merguez with a bit of heat. The herby salad is a nice counterpart.

2005 Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. JG 94+. Beautiful dark rose color. Really unusual nose with an off note I can only describe as like something you might smell in a petroleum refinery or maybe cordite. Mild notes of Indian spices and perhaps a bit of prune. This wine is very hard for me to describe. It is spicy with deep red fruits.

Tomahawk Pork Chop. fennel pollen. The top (far) part is the pork chop itself, wonderfully tender and with a lovely flavor. The bottom long parts are the pork belly, similar flavor but WAY richer.

Dessert menu.

Cocoa Nib Caramel Tart. whipped creme fraiche. Rich.

Butterscotch Budino. sea salt & rosemary pine nut cookies. OMG, I love these creamy puddings.

Seasonal Gelati & Sorbetti. Mint, coconut Stracciatella, and a berry flavor. Nice complex Italian flavors.

Overall, I thought the food at Chi Spacca was quite awesome, if not exactly authentically Italian. Certainly more to my taste than any normal steakhouse. They should import some pastas over from Mozza though :-). From the menu I thought prices looked crazy, but the total turned out to be reasonable ($130 a person before tip) even though we went to town. Really to town as the above was for 3 people!

Service was great too, and the atmosphere fun. My only complaint is with the bottle limit. The $30 corkage is fine, and you can even wave the corkage ordering off the list — again great. But the 2 bottle hard limit, apparently very strictly enforced (we brought the Barolo and the Margaux), is quiet annoying. It barely worked for 3 people and totally breaks down for wine dinners. Their list has interesting Italians, but the wines are two young. Plus I just resent having to buy off wine lists altogether (beyond the occasional white or rose). If they priced a fixed $30-50 markup, and had my kind of wines, it would be fine, but they always use a multiplicative markup. I’m not paying $400-600 for a $200 bottle!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

More Foodie Club craziness.