There is a right size for every restaurant, but not all restaurants are the right size. The vast acreage that works for a chain coffee shop or Chinese eatery is inappropriate for a classic French restaurant. This is as much a calculation of logistics as anything else – even an army of servers can’t give personal service in an auditorium-like setting.
When Frascati was in Redondo Beach, they served Italian food that was excellent, but not always in the style it deserved. The restaurant was very large, and when full to capacity, seemed to overwhelm the kitchen. Delays would mount, appetizers were liable to arrive after main courses and servers hurried from table to table trying to assure diners that their food would come soon. The place was beautiful, the menu ambitious, but the experience could be erratic.
Last year Frascati moved to smaller premises in Rolling Hills Estates, an inconspicuous location in the Avenues shopping center. The new place seats about 70 people, less than half the size of the previous restaurant, but it’s a better fit. The feel is authentically Italian, the service assured, and while a few changes could be made in the food, overall we were satisfied.
The menu has an extensive section of antipasti “from the glass case,” ranging from simple dishes of olives to some rather unusual rustic specialties. We decided to order two as starters – roasted artichokes with lemon and garlic, and white anchovies with pickled fennel – along with a bowl of minestrone soup. The roasted artichoke was about as expected, vegetable richness contrasted with fruity olive oil and citrus, but the anchovies were a surprise. It wasn’t the anchovies themselves, tasty though they were, but the combination of the delicate filets with fennel. The combination was superb, the fennel’s full licorice flavor muted to subtlety by the pickling process and contrasting with the dense, flavorful fish, which had been lightly sprinkled with lemon. The portions on both of these dishes were sufficient to tease the appetite, and they were a bargain at less than four dollars each.
The minestrone used an all– vegetable stock, and was the better for it. The beef or chicken base that is usually used makes a hearty stock but is less subtle –- this thick potage was just about vegetables and herbs, and captured their essence. We paired our starters with glasses of wine –- a Frascati, naturally, the famous white wine from that town near Rome. It’s a delicate, crisp white that Italians consider a good lunchtime wine, low in alcohol, and it went exceptionally with the soup.
We continued with a salad of prosciutto, pear, and gorgonzola cheese, which arrived with a beautiful presentation but a lack of thought compared to the other dishes. The prosciutto was served in long, thin sheets, which looked great but made it hard to eat in combination with anything else. It was a lavish amount of high-quality prosciutto, and nicely paired with the walnut, tart pears, endive, candied walnuts, and lemon dressing. The gorgonzola made a good pairing as well, but there was only a small dollop of the cheese. The ideas here were splendid, but the execution and balance were just a bit off.
For main courses we selected linguine with clams, the house special of whole sea bass filleted tableside, and a daily special of rabbit with eggplant caponata. The linguini was the sort of simple dish that almost all Italian restaurants make, but few do really well. Here the manila clams were fresh and in abundance, and the white wine, parsley, and garlic sauce suited them nicely. It was a textbook example, the authoritative version that reminds you why an old favorite became an old favorite.
The rabbit was even better, a recipe from Sicily that goes back to the medieval era, when wild game was soaked in vinegar to tenderize, then sweetened with a dash of sugar or honey. The result was a sweet and sour sauce that was enhanced with raisins and cooked onion, delightful by itself and a perfect companion to the firm white rabbit meat. If the restaurant has a steady supply of rabbit then they should feature this all the time, because it was excellent. The accompanying caponata of mixed eggplant, tomato, zucchini, and a dash of bell pepper was another Sicilian dish and well suited to the rabbit – it had a slight sharpness that was a good contrast to the rabbit sauce, an almost Middle Eastern intensity of flavor. (Given the ancient trade links around the Mediterranean, the resemblance may be no accident.)
The fish arrived at our table whole and was ceremoniously filleted tableside, but unfortunately our server was having a bad day when it came to piscine surgery. He lifted both sides of the fish expertly from the backbone but missed the tiny lateral bones and fins, so we had to eat very slowly to avoid them. The flavor of the fish was excellent, the skin crisp, but I found myself wishing for a bit less showmanship and a bit more care – I have had fish deboned tableside at other restaurants and know it can be accomplished without leaving this many inedible bits behind.
We paired our main courses with more wines from the very good list by the glass, a Casttello Banfi Gavi and a Travaglini Gattinara, both of which we allowed our server to select. He did a fine job, too – the Gattinara was particularly luscious with the rabbit, a smooth, subtle, yet powerfully flavored wine that can stand up to a sauce with some vinegar and bring out the best in it.
We were theoretically full after the bountiful dinner portions, but couldn’t resist sharing a semifrerddo di croccante – hazelnut ice cream with fruit and crème anglaise, light and delicately sweet. Dinner for three with three glasses of wine ran just over $160, a bit of an extravagance, but worth it for the very good and personal service. Though not every dish hit the mark, overall it was a memorable and relaxing evening. Frascati has managed to move what was best about their Redondo Beach restaurant to a more fitting location, and they’re settling in well.
Frascati is located at 550 Deep Valley Drive, # 145 (lower level of Avenues Shopping Center). Salads & starters $10-$16, pastas $16-$18, main courses $21-$35. Open daily for lunch and dinner, parking lot nearby. Wheelchair access good, full bar. For reservations call 310-541-8800.
