Famous? Rich? This one’s for you

THE Baldi family of Ristorante Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica, the neighborhood Italian for the A-list crowd, has a new offspring in Beverly Hills. That would be E. Baldi, headed up by Giorgio’s son Edoardo and his wife, Darnell.

Instead of the ramshackle charm of the original, this one has a budget minimalist look. But who needs decor when the clientele is as stylish and star-studded as this one? Though Warren Beatty and Annette Bening are sharing a light supper one night, other diners are blase -- and polite -- enough to pretend not to notice.

It may already be a bona fide celeb magnet and industry lunch spot, but E. Baldi is not simply a clone of the wildly successful Giorgio Baldi. And Edoardo Baldi’s cooking is often very good, more ambitious and better executed than I ever remember Giorgio Baldi being.

At Giorgio Baldi, the “specials� are the same year after year. Here, there are new dishes in most categories every day -- just one of the ways that Edoardo, Giorgio’s son, sets his restaurant ever so slightly apart from his father’s eponymous ristorante.

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Attentive to the ‘A’ list

EARLY one afternoon, Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch film director, wanders into the stark, all-white room for lunch, the proofs of the ad for his latest film in hand. He’s immediately recognized and acknowledged and led to a window table. The hosts, Darnell among them, have the celebrity thing down cold. Minutes later, here’s the diminutive chef himself stepping out from the kitchen to welcome the director.

Guests who don’t think twice about dropping more than $100 a person for a casual dinner seem to love the fact that it’s small and intimate enough that they can keep up the pretence that it’s just a simple trattoria, no big deal.

Though in some circles diners might consider dressing up to eat a $33 Dover sole or $32 lobster, here, at lunch, a fiftysomething man shows up in a trucker’s hat stenciled with the words “white boy� and 2-day-old stubble. An actor dressed like any regular guy studies a script while he waits for his ravioli. A beautiful woman wearing major jewelry and sitting alone dials her cellphone over and over and over.

Winter sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the boxy space at the corner of Canon Drive and Brighton Way. A handful of hardy souls have taken up seats on the sidewalk terrace and are sipping iced tea. It’s shady here, more discreet than the corner diagonally across the intersection, where Il Pastaio’s sidewalk tables bask in the sun and patrons break out their sunglasses.

All along Canon -- at La Scala, at Porta Via, Enoteca Drago and Caffe Roma -- tables are filling up for the lunch crowd. Can this street possibly welcome one more Italian? I guess so, because every time I’ve gone to E. Baldi, the newcomer has been busy.

E. Baldi is a prime example of that peculiar genre, the L.A. Italian, so it’s no surprise the waiter feels the need to introduce the fact that the butternut squash puree, the soup of the day, has no dairy and just a touch of amaretto. Or to interrupt the conversation to ask, is everything enjoyable?

The dishes don’t seem to come from any defined region. Though the Baldi family has roots on the Tuscan coast, butter, not olive oil, is used with abandon. Dishes are less rustic, more citified, than you’d find at anything but a resort restaurant in Tuscany.

And wine prices aren’t particularly friendly. Want a glass of wine? The cruvinet is filled with big-name, big-time bottles from Gaja, Jermann, Antinori and other high-end producers. If the prices weren’t so high, it could be a wonderful way to experience these wines. As it is, I’m not paying $67 for a glass of 2001 Solaia, or $45 for a glass of Tignanello from the same vintage; who knows how long the bottles have been open? The selection of Italian wines by the bottle is well-edited, though, and you can find a number of bottles for less than $50.

One night, my first visit there, a guest brings an offbeat Italian wine he is eager to try. The waiter opens the bottle, pours us a glass and five minutes later comes back to apologize. He’s new and didn’t know the restaurant does not allow guests to bring in a wine and pay a corkage fee. He’s very sorry, but the manager says he has to charge us $40 corkage.

Forty dollars? Though it was an honest mistake and not our fault the waiter opened the bottle, we’re to be severely penalized. The reasonable thing to do would be to charge an average corkage fee, somewhere in the neighborhood of $20. Even Valentino with its stupendous Italian wine list doesn’t charge $40. Nobody does. Is this a way to make friends for your restaurant?

After a discussion, Signora Baldi, who defends her husband’s policy by telling us he’s worked at the finest Italian restaurant in Southern California (and that would be Giorgio Baldi, of course, in her view), gets permission to drop the corkage fee to $30. How very generous.

A similar high-handedness is evident in the fact that every waiter I’ve had neglects to mention the price of the truffle specials. You can have ravioli or risotto or beef carpaccio with white truffles shaved over, he’ll tell you, and continue recounting the rest of the numerous specials, all without any mention of prices. Er, how much is that truffle pasta special? Ninety dollars.

The shame is that if the management’s attitude were a shade less haughty and the prices transparent you’d enjoy the meal more and wouldn’t go away with the sinking feeling that you’ve been taken advantage of. Because the cooking, in fact, is better than it needs to be for a celebrity spot in Beverly Hills.

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Some tempting starters

IF your guest is late, order up the bastoncini of polenta -- thick fingers of golden fried polenta -- to dip in a fondue of mascarpone and Gorgonzola. The carpaccio misto di mare is terrific, a large plate covered with thin, transparent slices of raw sea bass, salmon, tuna and sometimes snapper topped with a pretty little salad of mache and herbs and drizzled with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

But the best antipasti may be the salad of farro (spelt) with cannellini beans, cherry tomatoes and nuggets of langoustine in a bright lemony dressing.

Pastas are a good bet and go beyond the usual. There’s quadretti Portovenere, which is big squares of fresh pasta tossed in a pesto smoothed with a little cream and dropped onto the plate like handkerchiefs. It’s not your usual gutsy pesto but more muted. Lasagnotti are circles of green pasta flavored with Swiss chard folded into half moons and lined up on the plate sauced in a delicate meat ragout and bechamel sauce. It makes a surprisingly light main course.

A special spaghetti with bottarga (tuna roe), though, is oily, and the bottarga is not the best quality.

As at Baldi senior’s restaurant, ravioli is a specialty. The pasta itself is supple and lovely, though perhaps not quite as al dente as an Italian would prefer to eat it. The stuffings all have the texture of baby food, which is just a bit off-putting. There’s mascarpone with radicchio, potatoes with thyme or a standard porcini mushroom filling, all napped in rich sauces that are unusually heavy on the butter. No wonder everybody is lapping up the ravioli. It’s that butter.

Pizzas are marred by a thin limp crust, and are on the small side too, but the toppings are simple and effective. Pizza bianca with a thin molten later of mascarpone, bufala mozzarella and Parmesan is a little salty, but soothing. The pizza Napoletana, which is basically a Margherita with the addition of capers and anchovies, is decent too.

There aren’t that many main courses on offer, really, and it’s all pretty standard fare. Langoustine served with the heads on, and split, are fine with a squeeze of lemon, but sea bass in cartoccio (parchment) is overcooked and dry on the night I try it. Veal scaloppine suffers from too much tomato sauce and too little scaloppine.

But I like the special tagliata, steak sliced thin and crowned with a lemon-drenched raw artichoke salad and shavings of good Parmesan. But why put butter on the beef?

So many of the main courses are uninspired that the homey flavor of the roast veal one day is a complete surprise. We all take bite after bite, suddenly hungry again. This tastes like something your grandmother would make, the meat tender and succulent suffused with rosemary and sage. It’s a soulful dish that comes with the bonus of a side dish of sweet carrots and baby artichokes.

One dessert really shines. That would be the budino pandoro, a warm bread pudding made from the rich, eggy sweet bread that’s a holiday tradition in Verona.

Everything about the hazelnut dessert -- the house-made hazelnut ice cream, the candied hazelnuts -- is delicious -- except the tough crepes, which should by rights be the payoff. Limone limone or double lemon, is so achingly sweet that my doctor friend jokes it should be served with a shot of insulin. If you want just a bit of sweets to share, consider the trio of miniature creme brulee, panna cotta and semifreddo, followed by a perfect espresso.

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Pricey end to the meal

JUST when a civilized lunch has managed to put the corkage fiasco and that unannounced $90 truffle scam in the background, I arrive at the valet station to be presented with a whopping $14 parking bill. Lunchers be warned: The parking belongs to a medical building and during the day the charge is by the quarter hour (after 6 p.m., it’s a fixed $6). Penny pinchers would be wise to park in the public lot up the street.

E. Baldi has the virtue of being the new Italian kid on the block right now, but to hang on to the heart of Beverly Hills’ Italophiles, a stark minimalist look and supple ravioli may not be enough once the novelty wears off. Some bad restaurant habits, such as not informing guests just how much the specials are or urging customers to order truffles for an undisclosed amount, signal loud and clear that E. Baldi is more interested in wringing every possible dollar from guests than in true hospitality.

What this newcomer lacks is a sense of generosity. If the Baldis would drop the hauteur and concentrate on warm-hearted, authentic Italian cooking, it could be a star on Canon Drive.

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E. Baldi

Rating: * 1/2

Location: 375 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills; (310) 248-2633

Ambience: Stark minimalist Italian on Beverly Hills’ Italian row from Edoardo Baldi, son of Giorgio Baldi of the popular Santa Monica restaurant of the same name.

Service: Veers between warmth and plenty of attitude. When the place is jammed, the food is sometimes very slow coming from the kitchen.

Price: Antipasti, $11 to $18; pasta and risotto, $12 to $22; main courses, $19 to $33; cheese plate, $17; desserts, $9 to $12. White truffle dishes, $90.

Best dishes: Spelt and langoustine with cannellini beans, carpaccio misto di mare, bastoncini di polenta, lasagnotti, gnocchi with lobster, quadretti Portovenere , veal roast with rosemary and sage, budino pandoro.

Wine list: Nice selection of Italian wines with substantial markups; be attentive to prices of wines by the glass. No outside wines allowed.

Best table: A leather booth behind the entrance with a good view of the room and the street outside.

Details: Open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, for dinner from 6 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Wine and beer. Canon-Brighton Medical Building’s valet parking accessed via a driveway to the left of the restaurant, $6 after 6 p.m., significantly more (charge is per quarter-hour) at lunch. Public lot two blocks north on Canon Drive.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.