Restaurant: Funke
Location: 9388 S Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (424) 279-9796
Date: May 23, 2023
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Rating: Great pasta. Salty!
Funke is the latest from the pasta master at Felix and Motherwolf.
Funke is located on Little Santa Monica right near Il Pastaio.
Fancy Beverly Hills frontage.
Lots of good wine, and not a crazy markup, maybe 2-3X. Of course, this is painful with a Gaja or something. And they have the really annoying 2 bottle limit. As usual this made us spend LESS money than if they hadn’t had the limit. We just drank less wine.
Downstairs bar. There is also a big roof bar.
Special pasta room.
Stuffed pasta!
The empty main dining room. The place is huge as there are several.
The big kitchen (empty now).
We took the elevator upstairs.
Big upstairs area and more bars!
Private dining room with this huge table. We were tucked in the corner here. Nice and quiet, the way we like it.
The menu. Lots of overlap with Felix and Mother Wolf.
From their list. High acid with nice minerality.
Fiori di Zucca. Squash Blossom, ricotta fresca, parmigiano reggiano, sea salt. Quite good, and very delicate, but odd without any kind of sauce.
Polpette della Maestra Alessandra. Sugo di pomodoro, english peas, parmigiano reggiano. Solid meatballs, great sauce. The balls were salty. Hey, everything at Funke is really salty. They were a bit chewier too then I like, but the meaty flavor was great.
Frisella Pugliese. Burrata pugliese, psring vegetables, extra virgin olive oil. This was a weird burrata dish. It was on a crispy bread/pizza/thing. It was tasty, but who needed more carbs? Burrata was great. Spring veggies were great. Herbs (like mint) were fabulous. The whole thing was messy though, fell all over the table as we tried to cut it.
Misticanza. Lettuces, wild and cultivated greens, herbs, flowers, condimento di lambrusco. Very lovely salad. Felt fresh and healthy.
Pizza Boscaiola. Wild mushrooms, l’avarizia, salsiccia, parmigiano reggiano, finocchietto. The dough wasn’t that exciting. It was good, but not nearly as good as Bar Monette or anything. The mushrooms + sausage on a pizza, however, great!
Troffie, Sori, Liguria, Sofia. Pesto Genovese, parmigiano reggiano, basil. Perfect classical rendition of this. Just like in Liguria except no potato or long beans. Great chew to the pasta and super bright basil flavor.
Agnolotti dal Plin, Roddino, Piemonte, Gemma. Sugo di Arrosto, erbette chard, parmigiano reggiano. Perfect. Super salty butter pasta water emulsion sauce and delicate little “porky” pockets. Perfect.
Orecchiette, Bari Vecchia, Puglia, Nunzia. Salsiccia, broccoletti, sugo di pomodoro, ‘nduja, pecorino pugliese. Great chew to the Orecchiette and a nice acidity and good sausage flavor. Very very salty again.
Linguine alle Vongole. Aglio, olio, peperoncino, manila clams, vino bianco, parsley. Clams are much bigger than in Italy but the flavor was spot on, parsley forward, quite lovely. Extremely salty again.
Mezze Maniche alla Gricia. Guanciale, black pepper, pecorino romano DOP. My favorite pasta as it was basically salty bacon, pecorino, and pork fat flavored. Increidbly salty. Like salty for salt. All those ingredients are salt forward.
Scottadita di Agnello. New Zealand Lamb Rib Chops, cicoria bruciata, english peas, spring onions, green garlic, mint. Interesting prep covered in herbs. It was nice to have some more fresh herbs. This gave me a bit of Vietnamese vibe. The lamb itself was well cooked and delicious.
The dessert menu.
Mandorle Siciliano Gelato. Sicilian Almonds. I ordered this because at Sweet Milk Gelato several of my signature flavors are based on Sicilian Almonds. I have to say this wasn’t that exciting — i.e. mine are much better. I think they just used Mandorle Dolce (sweet almond). It’s pleasant and subtle, but I prefer Mandorle Tostate (toasted almonds) which just have more flavor.
Cannoli Siciliani. Murray farm cherries, pistacchi di bronte. Madagascar chocolate. These were okay, but not amazing. I’m not sure I felt about the cherry thing, although it is in season. And the pistachios were rubbery and chewy intead of crunchy — pistachio foul!
Crostata di Mirtilli. Puff pastry, sicilian almonds, crema di bergamotto. This was nice, although it tended to explode all over the place like any classic puff pastry.
The trio of desserts.
Some chocolate expresso truffles and almond “cakes.” The almond things were good, actually.
Emotional Damage!
Overall, Funke was quite good. Service was very nice and professional, and they certainly knew their menu. The wine director was very knowledgable and nice too — although I’m no fan of the 2 bottle limit (but I’m sure that comes from high on up). The wine list is small, nearly all Italian, and excellent. Prices aren’t bad. But having to buy from the list somewhat means we would buy less, and buy interesting cheaper wines instead of the kind of older big wines we often collect. They don’t even really have those older wines, only a few places like Capo do in LA. Food was excellent. It is VERY SALTY. I know all restaurants are pretty salty but they, like Felix and Mother Wolf, go to town with it. Very salty. It tastes good, but you can feel it. It’s also very carb forward, almost gratuitous. And while the menu is slightly bigger than either Felix or Mother Wolf, it’s essentially very similar. A big percentage, perhaps 50-70% of all dishes duplicate with the other restaurants. So to that effect you could eat at any one of the three and have essentially a very similar meal. At current, all three reservations aren’t so easy to get, very difficult for Funke and pretty darn hard for Mother Wolf — and these are large spaces — so they are clearly doing “something” right.
