Pazzia--A Fine Sort of Madness

Pazzia, 755 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 657-9271. Open for lunch Monday-Friday; for dinner Monday-Saturday (Closed Labor Day). Full bar. Valet parking. Visa, MasterCard and

“When I opened my restaurant 10 1/2 years ago, my knowledge of restaurants was this: I was a good customer.” So Mauro Vincenti read a few books, took some classes, “learned things that served absolutely no purpose.” Then, with no investors outside of his family, he opened a restaurant where he made his own bread, pasta, ice cream. “Some nights,” he says, “Mauro’s had three customers. Some nights we had eight. It was a little crazy; I got totally scared.”

And yet three years later, he embarked on a far more ambitious project when he opened Rex. “We believed totally in the renaissance of downtown, but the building had been abandoned since 1965. We spent a million-and-a-half dollars to open a place that had only a few tables in a huge space. We served small portions at high prices. I had a chef who never worried about how much he spent on the food. . . . It was crazy.”

The following year Vincenti came up with another crazy concept in Apres Moi. His idea was to collaborate with a group of French chefs in opening a Los Angeles restaurant. He would help them build the place; they would commute from France to run its kitchen. “Impossible,” said the critics, but six years and a name change later, Fennel opened in Santa Monica.

By his own admission, every one of these was a crazy idea. And yet, it is his latest restaurant that Vincenti has dubbed Pazzia--which means “craziness” in Italian. And as far as I can tell, this time there’s nothing the least bit crazy about the idea.

Pazzia is centrally located. The prices are reasonable. The room is beautiful and every detail--from the Aldo Rossi chairs to the Ricci silverware--is gorgeous. And although the chef here clearly considers cost, the food itself is wonderful. If this is craziness, I wish we had more of it.

“Pazzia,” Vincenti says, “is where I want to eat. OK?” OK for him--but choosing what you want to eat may prove difficult. You really must try pappa al pomodoro-- a delectable mush of tomatoes, bread and olive oil that is one of the most comforting things you’ll ever taste. But you won’t want to miss the yellow pepper soup, either. It is an astonishing color--eating it, you have the impression that you are dipping your spoon into pure paint. The plate comes topped with a few golden croutons, a dusting of grated cheese and a pale float of light green olive oil scattered across the top.

But there are other appetizers that should not be missed. Caponata, the Sicilian eggplant salad, is made here with raisins and served with little slices of soft fresh mozzarella and a few leaves of lettuce. It is a perfect balance of sweet and salt, savory and bland.

Another appetizer plays off crunchy slices of Asian pear-apples with soft savory caccioto cheese and whole walnuts. After you’ve cleaned your plate, you may be tempted to order another--it’s that good. So is the green bean salad served with a perfectly poached egg and thin salty curls of bottarga, the caviar of Italy.

You really shouldn’t miss the pasta, either: Some dishes you are unlikely to see anywhere else. Right now, the constantly changing menu offers an updated dish from Umbria--ravioli filled with a mixture of lentils and pine nuts and topped with a sauce of shrimp and lobster. It may sound strange, but it works wonderfully, managing to be both earthy and sophisticated at the same time. They’ve taken spaghetti amatriciana off the menu, but I wish they’d put it back: This is a simple dish--spaghetti topped with a sauce of tomatoes and prosciutto--but it shows how complex flavors can come from a few ingredients combined in perfect proportions.

These are not tiny portions--but they’re not huge either. If you manage not to devour all of the bread in the basket (a difficult feat; this homemade bread is absolutely superb) you will probably find room for a third course. And if you try the lamb chops cooked with thyme, you may find yourself wishing that the portion were larger. These are three tiny lamb chops--but the lamb is of extraordinary quality. The big veal chop may look sort of silly in its bread crumb coating, but taste it; the dish is a wonder. And the Santa Barbara shrimp I had on my last visit were the first I’ve had in months that were neither mushy nor mealy--these were delicate and delicious, with a briny flavor near the head that reminded me of the elusive taste of sea urchins.

Do you have room for dessert? A table of four would do well to share a plate of assorted Pazzia sweets. On the other hand, you’ll want to try the gelati; these are made here, but they all taste as if they came straight from Italy.

But much as I like the food, there are problems. The kitchen is still new, and although the timing is definitely improving (in the early days they couldn’t seem to get the food out of the kitchen at all), there can be agonizing waits between courses. Sometimes there are other lapses--on one visit the spaghetti amatriciana was so salty, it was inedible. And what I am sure was a historically correct dish of pork with chiles and honey (it is no longer on the menu), was absolutely weird.

But the main problem is the service: It is indescribably attentive and charming to those who are known--and often downright rude to those who are not. For favored friends, the kitchen produces focaccia stuffed with a mixture of fontina and fonduta cheeses--a big, puffy ball that is paraded dramatically across the dining room. Other diners asking to order it are sometimes brusquely told that they can’t. When some friends of mine turned up two minutes early for a 6:30 reservation, the maitre d’ refused to seat them in the still-empty dining room. When they finally got a table, it took forever before menus made an appearance. It took another eternity to get their food. They loved what they ate--but they will never go back. And I don’t blame them.

Vincenti will undoubtedly be upset to hear this. Still, he may not be surprised. He himself says, “Good help is very hard to find for a new restaurant,” adding that the best waiters aren’t going to leave lucrative jobs to go work in a restaurant that may fail. “It takes a few months to get a really good crew in the dining room.”

Well, I hope that they hurry. This is one restaurant that everybody ought to be able to enjoy, for Pazzia is a fine madness.

Recommended dishes: pappa al pomodoro, $6; yellow pepper soup, $6, spaghetti amatriciana, $10; ravioli with lentils and pine nuts, $13; lamb with thyme and eggplant, two chops $14, three chops, $20; veal cutlets, $22; gelati, $3.50 outside on the patio, $4.50 inside the restaurant.