Quest for Fire: Out of the Flames

Roastmasters

The mastery of the wood-burning oven at Vincentican be deduced from a single bite — a scallop, say, sprinkled with bread crumbs and baked in its shell until it just sizzles. The scallop itself is impeccably sourced, still sparkling fresh, and the bread crumbs are buttery and lightly browned. There is a sharp herbal note in the mix, just enough to slice through the richness, and the scallop is marked with not so much the taste as the presence of smoke, of forests, stone chimneys and chilly afternoons. It is a spectacular mouthful of food. The oven exerts its alchemy on Dover sole, lightly breaded and elegantly flavored with garlic, on cuttlefish and octopi arranged into a salad, on a buttery-soft roast squab. The adjacent rotisserie turns out the best restaurant version of porchetta I have ever tasted in California, loin and belly wrapped into a spiral, seasoned with fennel, and spit-roasted to a crackling, licorice-y succulence. Perfection does not come cheap, and it is certainly possible to eat several mediocre Italian meals elsewhere in this neighborhood for the price of a single superb one here. At these times, it is good to remember that on Monday nights, pizza also comes out of these ovens. 11930 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood, (310) 207-0127.

If you can’t take the heat, let the pros do the cooking: Campanile’s Mark Peel at the grill. Photos by Anne Fishbein

Vincenti’s Giuseppe Gentile stoking the fire

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Alcazar

17239 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, CA 91316

Category: Restaurant > Lebanese

Region: San Fernando Valley

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Antica Pizzeria

13455 Maxella Ave.
Marina del Rey, CA 90292

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Out of Town

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• Hiro Urasawa
• Gardena
• Foster Phillips
• Main Dish Recipes
• Bread

Cubist Masterpiece

First-time diners at the old Ginza Sushi-Ko were invariably surprised at the sight of Masa Takayama gracefully wrestling a squat clay brazier, adjusting its draft, fiddling with the single sculpted lozenge of bincho charcoal until it burned clear and true. The sushi bar took on a subtle, woodsy scent, not enough to detract from the clean, seashore aromas of the fish so expensively flown in from Japan, but a single note in the chorus. Takayama fussed with the grilling surface as if he were adjusting a complicated machine instead of a fine wire grate, making sure that the precious food was darkening to his satisfaction, and only after long minutes was his masterpiece ready to be served: the most exquisite toast points in human history. Hiro Urasawa, whose splendid restaurant Urasawa succeeded Sushi-Ko, also uses the pricey charcoal, but he uses it to grill ghost-white Kobe beef to a crisp-edged liquid succulence, like all the best steaks you’ve ever had compressed into a single two-by-two cube. Later, if he feels like it, Urasawa may grill a rare Japanese mushroom for you and make it into sushi. The charcoal, as well as the chef, has moods. 218 N. Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 247-8939.

Pit Boss

In the late ’90s, in a year when I happened to end up at dozens of the country’s greatest barbecue pits, from St. Louis to Lockhart, Texas, from Kansas City to Oakland to Tuscaloosa, perhaps the most startling discovery was that the best Los Angeles barbecue does just fine by national standards, thank you. What persuaded me of that fact? A slab of Woody’spowerfully scented small-end ribs picked up on the way home from the airport, a slab good enough to make pleasant memories of Bob Sykes’ in Bessemer, Alabama, and Lem’s on the South Side of Chicago seem as irrelevant as the box score from a Cleveland Cavaliers game. 3446 W. Slauson Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 294-9443. Also 475 S. Market St., Inglewood, (310) 672-4200.

Votive Confidence

The current aesthetic of of Los Angeles restaurant design suggests that certain of its architects might spend more than a little time in front of their Xboxes. Their interiors resonate with dark wood and leather, stone and iron, surfaces oozing water and flame, like the fifth level of any first-person shooter you could name. You never know quite whether to order a Dirty Martini or to search the ground for a pulsing golden key. Wilshire, a serious, farmers-market-driven restaurant cleverly disguised as the kind of place where one might consort with supermodels, practically seethes with fire in its sprawling patio dining room, flickering votive candles in great cathedral banks, roaring bonfires, and seeping waterfalls of flame — it’s like the Backdraft set crossed with the patio at Koi. To the latent pyromaniacs among us, the pan-roasted kurobuta pork chops, the terrific wine list and chef Christopher Blobaum’s justly famous deep-fried poached egg are just icing on the organic, artisanally produced cake. 2454 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 586-1707.