Italy’s old country found in Westwood’s newest eatery

Wednesday, November 11, 1998

Italy’s old country found in

Westwood’s newest eatery

FOOD: Restaurant’s lovely mosaics, glowing candles enhance
atmosphere of transformed local landmark

By Megan Dickerson

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The stately pillars lining Westwood seem a far cry from the
whitewashed tiles of Baja Fresh or the pricey three-foot-tall menus
of Jerry’s Deli. Tanino Ristorante, the newest restaurant playing a
part in Westwood’s much-touted revitalization, is as culturally
far-removed from the typical culinary village rest-stops as
California is from Europe and is thus worth an Italy-sized price
tag.

Nestled in a Romanesque landmark, Tanino looks the part of a
dimly-lit chapel in the Italian countryside, with deliciously high
ceilings, intimate candles and wall mosaics. The fireplace glow,
dancing off the golden tiles, recalls the chapel scene in "The
English Patient," in which Juliette Binoche views beautiful Italian
mosaics with only the aid of a simple flare. Tanino conveys this
same, movie-perfect magic, almost to the point that what one
digests could become inconsequential.

But, for up to $25 a plate, the food of the Italian countryside
­ and not just its luscious ambiance ­ of course plays a
substantial part.

The menu does not want for ambition, with items like sea urchin
sauce and black truffle leaping off a page of linguistically trying
phrases. For those yearning for authenticity, a full Italian meal,
from antipasto to dolci (dessert), can cost up to $70. The more
primordial need-driven can taste the atmosphere and the basic
cuisine for an easy $9, a price on par with the less-ambient Olive
Garden down the street.

In the tradition of authentic Italian restaurants, the pasta
menu offers just one dish per al dente noodle product. If you order
the spaghetti, there is no need to offer a sad, mangled order for
the Italian "spaghetti al nero di seppie e seppioline." Just say
spaghetti, and you’ll soon be slurping down spaghetti with squid
ink and baby squid. Which, as squid ink and baby squid go, is quite
a tasty ­ and horizon broadening ­ experience. Just keep
in mind that squid ink is, well, ink and as such, does its job well
in impishly staining the teeth and lips.

The capelli alla checca (angel hair pasta with tomato, basil and
garlic, $9) soothes the tongue with a typical zest, but the light,
chopped tomatoes furnish a freshness uncommon in the ubiquitous
Italian dish. The seafood linguine ($14.50) brims with briny brew,
spilling over with scallops, calamari and firm, buttery mussels.
The pasta in all dishes is cooked to an ideal consistency, not too
firm, not too mushy.

After the main meal (or meals, as the case may be), "la dolce
vita" is fruitful at Tanino. The restaurant purveys a dessert menu
blooming with pear and lemon tarts. There is no dessert tray, but
waiters are more than happy to list off the menu by heart.

Although it is supposedly the house specialty, the panna cotta
($6), or vanilla baked cream with mixed berries, is a little
less-than-dolce, and the raspberries and strawberries lose their
flavor in the thick froth. Still, as with the entire restaurant,
presentation is everything; the panna cotta arrives at the table
perched at the center of a bowl big enough for a small rabbit and
is accented by a jauntily placed sprig of mint.

The two things that come gratis in this world of lovely
affectations and mosaics are renewable in the extreme. One will
never want for water at the Tanino tables, as an eager waterboy
replenishes the glass goblets like an aquatic missionary. Bread
baskets, the second, typical fountain of free, come a little dry
but often to the table.

The ample service adds to the atmosphere of delicate
authenticity; although the waiters run the ethnic gamut from
French-bred to Italian-born-and-raised, they convey an Italian
comfortability to the place. That is, a restrained comfortability
­ this is not a place to enter with the wear of the day
showing on your person. This is a place to go when you want to get
a little dressed up, shed the mundane attachments of the day and
eat baby squid.

Tanino achieves this hoity-toity but down-home air with both out
of the ordinary menu items and the building’s inherited grace. A
full, ten-foot mirrored bar separates the two sections of the
vaulted room, sheltering alpine shelves of Italian goblets and
liquors.

Up a slightly curved, debutante-style rod-iron staircase, lies
the second floor, where cozy nooks await patrons drunk on amore.
One of the managers said the restaurant will eventually transform
the small, intimate area into a grotto for jazz concerts and other
small ensembles.

The palatial environment already has Italian singer Andrea
Bocelli piped in to enliven the ears and wet the appetite, so live
music will just be the icing on the panna cotta. This attention to
detail and old-world feel ­ from the marble entrance to the
quaint bathrooms ­ make Tanino a welcome addition to
Westwood’s often-prosaic street of edibles.

DAVE HILL

Tanino, a new Italian restaurant which occupies a historical
building on Westwood Boulevard, immerses patrons in a classic
architectural

dining experience.

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