Restaurant: Madeo
Location: 362 N Camden Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 859-4903
Date: March 1, 2019
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Good, and a scene, but pricey
My wife and I are always casting out for the intersection of our tastes on our date nights and it had been forever (at least a decade, probably more) since I was at:
Madeo — which has (I think temporarily) moved to Camden from their longstanding location. This is an LA mainstay medium old school Italian. The menu is fairly 80-90s high end Italian like Toscana.
The scene was off the hook. Very crowded with lots of “celebrity types” (looked like menu music industry people). There were also A LOT of heavy age gap couples — like the dark haired heavy dude in the far left (looked like 50s) and his early 20s date. They were making out in case one wondered if it was a different relationship.
From my cellar: NV Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne Extra Brut Extra Old. 90 points. Bone white! Tiny consistent bubbles.
Crushed bone, slate, minerals, oyster shell. Bone dry, medium finish, super high minerality. Bracing. An excellent value bubble. Better than the regular.
Pizza bread just like at Toscana.
Salmone Fresco Alle Erbe. Fresh salmon carpaccio with fresh herbs.
Carpaccio. Filet mignon, carpaccio, served with artichokes, parmigiano cheese and rucola. Very solid traditional carpaccio.
Rigatoni Mozzarella E Pomodoro. Diced eggplant and fresh mozzarella in a tomato sauce. My wife liked it, which is what matters.
Cacciucco. Fresh seafood soup in tomato sauce. Broth was good, if slightly salty and not a huge amount of it. Lots of good seafood, although it did have a pretty briny “seafood” smell. Really a mussels smell. I’ve had better, but this was a very respectable version of this dish.
Overall, service was very good at Madeo, and it’s quite a scene. Food was good, but for the price, not as good as I thought it should have been. I like Toscana’s food better and they are very similar style (if a tiny bit less of a scene).