RESTAURANT REVIEW : Da Vinci’s: A Couple of Reservations

About a year ago, I was heading to dinner at Da Pasquale on Little Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills; as I reached the block where the restaurant is located, I spotted valets and pulled over. The valet opened my door and I was out on the pavement before I saw that I was not at Da Pasquale, but at Da Vinci’s a couple of doors down.

“I’m terribly sorry,� I told the valet, “but I meant to go to the next restaurant.�

“Oh, but ours is a very good restaurant too,� he said.

In reclaiming my car, I promised the valet that one day, I would visit Da Vinci’s. Recently, I kept that promise.

On a Saturday night, a friend and I were seated at a wobbly little table in a little side room, separated from the main dining room with its semi-circular booths by a partition and a planter. We were given good, crusty bread and warm focaccia; our waiter, a friendly, if distracted fellow, described the specials. By peering through philodendron, I could see some of the tableside service conducted from a little wooden cart: the ladling of soups, the making of Caesar salads. Our little room, which we shared with three other tables, was too small for such dramatics.

Da Vinci’s has been in Beverly Hills for 11 years and is, for many loyal customers, a reliable standby. The lamp-lit dining room is cozy and comfortable. If you are fiftysomething and found nouvelle too nouvelle, and never did make the switch from martinis to white wine, you might be one of Da Vinci’s devoted customers.

That first night, the appetizers were full of promise. Roasted peppers were plentiful and perfectly cooked: firm, with that full, sweet roasted flavor, and topped with good anchovies. Between the partition and my friend’s shoulder, I caught glimpses of my clams in fresh tomato sauce being prepared and served from one of those wooden carts: the clams themselves were good, and the sauce, deliciously briny and garlicky. We split a tri-color salad of good fresh, discreetly dressed arugula, radicchio and endive, with a slice of sharp Romano cheese.

There was a rather long wait for our entrees. Then the serving cart appeared and parked behind my friend so closely he felt compelled to lean away from the heat of the blue Sterno flame. While sauce bubbled in a shallow pan, our waiter started to carve a big knob of meat; several other staff crowded up to him and the next thing you know, our waiter was waving that big long carving knife at his colleagues, and expostulating. “Get away from me! Everybody, get away from me!� Perhaps it was the knife, but everybody dispersed and shortly afterward, my friend received his plate of sliced lamb. Despite the temper expended on its behalf, the meat was neither particularly tasty nor tender.

I had ordered a special, a sauteed chicken breast topped with artichokes and tomatoes. What arrived was a messy-looking plate of vegetables under which were two chicken breasts with a soggy, eggy coating.

After our plates were cleared, we had another long wait before we were able to console ourselves with a slice of big, fluffy, rich lemon cake from the dessert cart. The coffee, however, tasted cooked and terrible. The bill was just over $100.

At a second dinner, we were given one of those roomy, comfortable booths in the main room, where we got the full effect of all the tableside activity. In fact, we started our meal with a made-at-the-table Caesar salad, which would have been excellent had there been about three times as much lettuce to absorb all of that very rich, intense dressing. The pasta paglia e fieno , fine white and green pasta with ham, peas, mushrooms and cream sauce, was quite nice, even if the peas didn’t taste particularly fresh. But the entrees again disappointed. My seafood risotto was boring and odd (why so many sliced mushrooms?). My friend’s sand dabs had that same soggy, eggy coating as the chicken I’d eaten on my first visit. Again, our meal was punctuated by long waits.

And yet, and yet, I can see why Da Vinci’s has a loyal following. It’s a hearkening back to a nearly bygone era, an era of skilled table service, winey sauces, double martinis and--best of all--big, soft, comfortable private booths. Not bad.

Da Vinci’s Ristorante, 9737 Little Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 273-0960. Lunch Monday through Friday, dinner seven nights. Major credit cards. Full bar. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $48 to $95.