Restaurant: Il Segreto Ristorante Belair
Location: 2932 Beverly Glen Cir, Los Angeles, CA 90077. (310) 474-8644
Date: February 13, 2016
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Decent neighborhood Italian
Giacomo Drago, one of the brothers in LA’s mini Drago Italian empire has opened yet another little Italian restaurant, this time a local joint in Belair. We snuck up here the day before Valentine’s day because the fixed menus on the day itself are annoying.
The name is apropos, because it’s tucked away in a mini-mall at the top of Beverly Glen.
The interior is cute, and actually surprisingly large, with an upstairs and a couple of different rooms.
PANZANELLA. Bread and Tomato salad with cucumbers, onion, and extra virgin olive oil sprinkled with burrata. Always one of my wife’s favorites.
BRESOLA. Dry cured beef with arugula and parmesan cheese. Not a bad version of this dish.
PUMPKIN RAVIOLI. pumpkin and ricotta stuffed ravioli with sage and cream sauce. The rich Drago version of this dish. Tasty, but the original Northern Italian one is just butter and sage.
UNI PASTA. handmade green and black penne with rock shrimp and uni sauce. I was disappointed in this. The pasta itself was good, but the sauce smelled a bit fishy and didn’t come together right.
Creme brûlée.
Lemon Meringue tart. Nice components, but the tart itself tasted very slightly “fridge burned,” which is something I’m really not a fan of.
Overall, service at Il Secreto was great, and the location cute, but the food (in our extremely limited sample) was just okay. Certainly well above average for an LA Italian, but not nearly as good as Il Pastiao, Giacomo’s flagship.
