bestia

specialties here are home-made charcuterie,pastaand pizza from the acunto wood-fired oven. the entire beast (hog, cow, etc.) comes in and delectable dishes come out, like fusilli lunghi al sugo di capra. for gringos, that’s hand-rolled pistachiopastain braised goat ragu. here is what the bestia (beast) experience looks like…

it wasn't bad. it just wasn't anything exceptional. salads on menu sounded good but were only okay. blandly dressed. porcinipastawas good but not any better than what i can make myself (i love to cook and do often.) unfriendly, unhelpful, almost rude bartender ( the young guy with prematurely gray hair). would it hurt to smile at customers the way he smiled at coworkers? timing was way off on second course. there were two of us and my grilled fish arrived 15 minutes after my partner's dinner. no apology, no explanation, just a curt "we bring out food as the kitchen makes it." grilled fish was acceptable, nothing more. i think if the food had been better we would have felt better about going there. maybe eating at the bar was not a good idea. not interested in returning nor recommending.

update: jonathan gold seems to agree with me. he called it bland and also rated it at #18 on his 101 best la restaurants list. he thinks it represents a new trend in "anti-california cuisine." bestia-- bringing bland back!

had an outstanding dinner here for 3 on sunday night. we shared the calamari (amazingggg), citrus salad (pretty good), chicken liver pate (amazingggg), clam pizza (delicious but spicy), bone marrow withpasta(kinda weak), and vealpasta(kinda weak). not every dish was a 10/10 but most were. i'd definitely go back and suggest it to any type of group. reservation a must!

came to this place at 9 pm and this place was so busy, a very nice place with a nice vibe to it. we ordered the bone marrow, it was very good, taste and eveything was perfect, then we had the cavatelli ala norcina, it was cooked to perfection,pastawas so good, after that we had the grilled sliced pork porterhouse, it was very good as well, cooked to perfection, meat was so juicy and so good. 👍👍👍

phenomenal. amazing. other similar adjectives. etc. 

had the pleasure of eating here and i was blown away at my overall experience. our bartender was very helpful and we even had a chance to speak with the og triple og / jedi master himself, chef ori. 

he made sure we grabbed the salumi plate and walked us through each item. the cavatelli and unipastafeatured hand made pastas and the lamb neck was truly something else. 

but the true mvp is the creamsicle torte cake. it is a must have and is actually the active ingredient in "michael's secret stuff" in space jam. it also ended racism. 

will be back here when my wallet allows me to.