Fia

“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading!”—Laurence Sterne

My movie producer friend, Morrie Grossman, co-authored a classic book of reviews of dive restaurants in Los Angeles.  This was back in the day when people actually read books.   

When it comes to commentary and criticism of eateries he knows of what he speaks.  He provides valuable critical and editorial advice to this blog.  While we were lunching one Saturday afternoon at OMGrill, itself a classic L.A. dive, he complained to me that my restaurant reviews are not reviews.  Rather, they begin with some unrelated topic then veer off in one direction or another like a flitting hummingbird, this story, that story, yet another story.  Then, he says, I try to show off like the student in the front row of a class who asks the professor the “Isn’t it true that I know this?” question.  Eventually, I get to the main course, the meat of the review.  By then, however, having been gorged with unnecessary blathering, the reader’s appetite is gone.  Morrie is a man of the world, a man who knows what’s what and on which side his bread is buttered.  He is a polymath, a sea that touches all shores, so one should take his counsel earnestly.

One of my favorite restaurants is Fia.  From the street, Fia looks very non-descript, a poor competitor to the myriad of eateries located along Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica.  One enters the restaurant through a narrow passageway which opens into a large outdoor courtyard which composes most of the restaurant.  There are two intimate covered second floor seating areas each with its own staircase and a separate large indoor dining room.  The ambiance is romantic and cozy with hanging lights, large trees growing overhead and comfortable homey wood furniture.

The food at Fia is basically Italian, but is alloyed with Asian and Continental.  Some of the dishes are purely of one cuisine but many are creatively blended into true (and I am reluctant to use this overused adjective) fusion fare.  I will be your docent today and exhibit the best of the artfully prepared items on the menu.

The Caesar salad is presented in a traditional fashion that would make its inventor, Caesar Cardini of Tijuana, Mexico, proud.  Crisp cold romaine lettuce is tossed with homemade bread croutons and a classic Caesar dressing.  It is topped with shaved parmesan cheese and whole anchovies.

Now we move on to a more adventurous dish, the appetizer Spicy Chili Tuna Arancini.  Arancini is a breaded fried rice ball which originated in Sicily.  Instead of the more typical cheese filling, Fia serves it with spicy chili tuna, a delightful amalgam of classic Italian comfort food and sushi.  One bites through the crunchy breaded rice to find the bold twist of a spicy kick from the tuna.  A wonderfully creative, superbly tasting start to the meal. 

I recommend a typical three course Italian meal with a pasta primi and a protein secondi following the salad and appetizer.  My two favorite pasta dishes are the Sweet Corn Agnolotti with Blue Crab and Sauce Cardinal, and the Capellini with Oysters, Champagne and Caviar.  All of the pasta is made in-house; it is fresh and soft with a delicate bite and lovely flavors of semolina and egg.  The agnolotti are generously stuffed with sweet corn, intermixed with tasty blue crab and covered with the quintessentially French sauce Cardinal.  The creamy sauce has a distinctive red color from lobster butter, tomato and cayenne pepper and complements the light pasta and crustacean.  The dish is garnished with light white foam and fresh herbs to elevate the presentation.

The Capellini with Oysters, Champagne and Caviar is a decadent indulgence fit for Freddy Mercury’s Killer Queen (I am struggling mightily to stay focused and avoid the irresistible impulse of a distracting digression so I am just going to give you a photograph and move on—a picture is worth a thousand words, or probably many thousands with my prattling verbosity).

For the secondi, Fia has outstanding meat and fish choices.  The British classic Beef Wellington is served with bacon wrapped asparagus.  A tender filet mignon is swaddled in a buttery puff pastry.  A slice through the flaky pastry reveals a perfectly prepared medium rare steak (the waiter advised me that it was impossible to properly cook the pastry and still leave the steak at my preference of rare).  The asparagus is wrapped in bacon because, well, everything tastes better wrapped in bacon.   The steak and asparagus rest on a bed of spinach.  As Popeye says:  “I’m strong to the finish ‘cause I eats me spinach”

The delicate flavor of branzino, the Mediterranean sea bass, is an excellent accompaniment to the Beef Wellington.  The whole fish is pan-seared to retain the moist, flaky texture.  It is served with fluffy mashed potatoes and corn and mushroom sauce.

The vegetable sides are especially creative.  Cauliflower Fioretto resembles broccolini but has a sweeter, nut-like taste due to the unique, succulent small florets (hence its name) that sprout atop long, thin stems.  It is prepared with shallots, ginger, mint and chili.  I wrote off Brussels sprouts after spending a college semester in England eating them prepared to the consistency and taste of a Super Ball.  Fia sautés the cruciferous vegetable with pomegranate and nuoc cham, a salty, sweet and tangy Vietnamese sauce made from fish sauce, garlic, lime juice, sugar, chili and vinegar.  The nuoc cham adds the flavor of umami and subtle heat.

The star of the dessert menu is the cascading tiramisu.  Fresh amaretti biscuits are dipped in espresso and coffee liqueur, alternated in layers with Sabayon mascarpone mousse filling, dusted with cocoa powder and theatrically served lava style at the table with the waiter pouring flowing whipped cream over the top.  The slight bitterness of the coffee is balanced by the sweet mascarpone mousse for an extravagant after-dinner treat.  Despite the rich ingredients, the tiramisu is light and airy.

With an inviting outdoor setting, attentive service and superb food that appeals to all varieties of palate, Fia is one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles.  By virtue of the vast international reach of my blog and my influence in the world of the comestible, I pray this review does not crash the servers at Resy and Open Table with thousands, or even millions, of reservation requests.