Small wonder [restaurant review]
Jame Enoteca chef Jackson Kalb. Photos (CivicCouch.com)
I don’t usually call restaurant owners’ judgment into question in reviews, but when I first visited the eatery, then called Workshop Enoteca, my first thought was, “What were they thinking when they did this?” The small space in the corner of a mini-mall was formerly a modest diner that handled a lot of takeout orders, a business model that seemed sensible for the location. The new tenant was an upscale Italian restaurant specializing in housemade pastas, with a kitchen run by a veteran of Melisse, Factory Kitchen, and other elite restaurants.
Thanks to a dispute with another restaurant over the name, the former Workshop Enoteca is now Jame Enoteca, the JA being the first two letters of Chef Jackson Kalb’s first name, the ME the same for front of house veteran Melissa Saka. They are hands-on owners, and you’re likely to meet them if you stop by for lunch or dinner.
Which it seemed half of the local population was doing when we showed up last week. When our party of four arrived for a late supper there wasn’t a seat to be had, but after a short time they squeezed us in at an outside table. We were almost the last ones seated for the evening, and throughout our meal more people walked up only to be turned away. The servers were working at top speed while Melissa ducked in and out of the small kitchen.
The menu here is relatively short, but nevertheless there is a wide range of dishes, because this is not the usual Italian menu where pastas and sauces are combined in infinite varieties. Instead each of the seven pasta dishes uses a different handmade pasta. The mandilli, thin flat sheets of pasta, are offered only with the three-nut pesto, the tagliatelle only with the ragu sauce. This is an amazing way to run any kitchen in California, where most people don’t know or care about the different textures of pasta, and it seems absurd in a place with a kitchen this small. Somehow they’re managing it, and based on two visits they’re generally successful.
We started with a prosciutto and peach salad, a spicy Caesar, and what was described as a small ciabatta loaf with umami butter. It wasn’t a conventional ciabatta, because the loaf was domed rather than fairly flat and didn’t have the large holes that are typical, but it was good bread served hot. Umami butter is a modern variant on the classic French compound butter; it’s what happens when you take savory items like garlic, anchovy, and olives and puree them into butter, then chill it overnight so that the flavors meld. When fresh bread and umami butter meet it’s delightful, and so it was here.
The prosciutto and peach salad had great ideas but was flawed in its execution. The fruit was at the bottom, topped by layers of cured meat, arugula, and fresh sweet cheese with a dash of oil and herbs. The problem was that the prosciutto was in long, thin sheets and was right in the middle of everything, and as it was difficult to cut, the salad had to be disassembled before eating. Chopping the prosciutto would make the presentation just as pretty and make it possible to enjoy that superb combination of textures and flavors. (They also might consider changing the menu description, which refers to the cheese as stracciatella. That is the technically correct name for it, but in America the egg drop soup by the same name is better known. When I first read the menu I thought the salad might be submerged, or that it might come with soup on the side. The same name is also used for vanilla-chocolate ice cream, which boggles the mind in the context of a salad.)
I was less thrilled with the spicy Caesar partly because I don’t think the world needs a spicy Caesar salad, and partly because the chili powder in the dressing hijacked the balance of the dressing. It was a novelty that we were glad we tried but feel no urge to order again. One could imagine it as a Caesar for those who love kimchi, but I’ll still take the classic over this one.
As the word “Enoteca” in their name means they offer wines, it’s no surprise that they have a decent wine list. What is surprising is the price point – there isn’t a single bottle below $44. Italy produces hundreds of good quality wines that can be sold at a lower price point. For comparison, another Italian restaurant only a few blocks away has 26 wines on their list that are under $35, and they’re not all dogs. There may be snob appeal in only offering expensive bottles of wine, but it will repel some customers who might otherwise visit more often. We had glasses of Arneis, Vermentino, and a very good Barbera, but declined to order seconds.
We had all eyed the two big meat dishes, a braised pork shank and ribeye, but ordered pastas because they looked more intriguing. When they arrived, we noticed that cheese and sauce are used in genuine Italian proportions. Italian-American places swamp pasta with sauce and then bury it with cheese, but here the sauce is sufficient to coat the pasta plus a little more, the cheese a dusting to lend flavor.
Paccheri Rigate pasta. Photo
We had selected paccheri rigati, big tubes with a spicy pork sausage sauce, ricotta gnocchi with housemade pastrami, a beef ravioli variant called scarpinocc, and a daily special of cappellini with a sauce of tomato, basil, and reggiano cheese. That last item was the most revealing in a way, because that three-ingredient sauce had been simmered for 36 hours to intensify and meld the flavors, and it showed off the virtues of simplicity. It adhered nicely to the cappellini, an extremely thin spaghetti, and the person who ordered it declared it the best she had ever had.
The simplicity of that dish was in contrast to the ricotta gnocchi, which were served with crisped pastrami pieces, charred cabbage, dill, and caraway. This may sound a world away from Italian flavors, but in Alpine Northern Italy there are regional dishes that mix pastas with cured meats and cabbage. The details were innovative, the spirit within Italian tradition, and the effect was brilliant. I scanned the lunch menu to see if that pastrami was offered in a sandwich, because I’d have one in a heartbeat, but alas, it isn’t. I’ll have to order this dish again to have more of it, but that’s an easy decision.
The paccheri rigati was a conventional item well executed, the pork sausage in the tomato sauce spicy enough to have a distinct kick that enlivened the fruity tomato herb sauce. It was less peppery than an arrabiata sauce, but will satisfy anyone who enjoys that traditional item.
Jame Enoteca’s squid ink bavette. Photo (CivicCouch.com)
The flavors on the scarpinocc were traditional, pasta stuffed with beef cheeks and sage served in brown butter accented with cheese and mushrooms, but the pasta was not. Scarpinocc aren’t often seen on local menus because this pasta, which gets its name from a resemblance to old fashioned shoes, takes dough folding almost to origami levels. The middle is thin, the edges thick, and cooking them through takes split second timing. They were slightly off, with the pasta chewy, but when I brought this to the manager’s attention Melissa comped them, offered another glass of wine, and had another plate made. It was good customer service and the replacement order was perfect.
We considered dessert but were nicely full after our entrees. I plan on returning to see if the brown butter fig cobbler is still offered. It was a remarkable meal in an unlikely setting. Though Jame Enoteca is obviously a success in its current location I expect them to eventually move to larger premises, since their ambition seems boundless but their current space isn’t. Though not everything was perfect, it’s clear that the South Bay has acquired a master chef teamed with a service pro, and I hope we keep them both.
Jame Enoteca is at 241 Main Street in El Segundo. Open Tues. – Sun. 11 a.m., close 9 p.m. Sun, 9:30 p.m. Tues.-Thurs. 10:30 p.m. Fri. – Sat. Parking lot. Wheelchair access okay but tight aisles, beer and wine served. (310) 648-8554. Menu at eatjame.com. ER