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La Vita Brentwoodiana
According to the LA Times Food section's focus on Italophilic gastronomy in Los Angeles, our new Little Italy is located in... Brentwood? Valli Herman’s article notes:
It happens in Hollywood, it happens in real estate and now it's happening in Brentwood. It's a kind of copycat syndrome. In movies, they're called sequels. In real estate, it's called gentrification. In Brentwood, it's called an explosion in Italian restaurants.
We understand the market for high-end cuisine of most European varieties is likely to be concentrated on the Westside. Yet this particular agglomeration is disheartening for us admittedly geographically prejudiced Angelenos who will go to many lengths to find veritable foodstuffs related to la cucina italiana -- except venture west of the 405. Especially when it's the squeaky clean stretch of San Vicente Blvd. where you can't throw a rock without hitting someone in a Juicy tracksuit. (And ooh, is it ever tempting to do so.) Fingers crossed that Hollywood, in a rare act of copycatting Brentwood, gets a piece of this new action.
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Maybe we’re just overreacting. Features on Mario’s in Glendale and homemade pasta at La Buca on Melrose near Wilton give us solace, and many of David Shaw’s favorite sources for salumi can be found east of La Cienega.
We're still willing to put aside some of our neighborhood biases for now. Va bene. Bottom line is the increasing availability of top-notch Italian food in Los Angeles -- a city otherwise known for its Italian-style schifezza rather than surfeit of first-rate restaurants -- is a most welcome development.
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