Five-course tasting menu for $75 or less in LA? Yes, you read that right

Recently, I started hearing about something very welcome to those of us who like to eat at good restaurants: affordable tasting menu options.

Diners visit on certain days, usually Monday through Thursday, and have a multi-course dinner for less than $75. Yes, dreams can come true.

As someone constantly searching for a good meal for less (check out my Cheap Fast Eats series), I was immediately intrigued.

Has the Cheap Fast Eats mindset trickled up into upscale restaurants? Or is this simply a creative way to get more people through the door during difficult times?

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Whatever the reason, I thought it warranted further investigation. So over the next month, I'm going to try out a variety of these offerings, and report back.

Today, I'm starting with Mozza, the Cal-Italian restaurant on Melrose.

The Amaro Bar Pasta Tasting, Mozza

Osteria Mozza, the Michelin-starred restaurant owned by chef Nancy Silverton, offers a five-course tasting menu featuring handmade pasta dishes for $75.

The menu is only available at the Amaro Bar, which seats about 10 people and is located toward the back of the restaurant, Monday through Thursday.

It consists of four half orders of pasta dishes, along with one amuse-bouche and one dessert.

The smoked spaghetti, the first course of the pasta tasting menu at Osteria Mozza on Melrose.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The menu

The meal started with the amuse-bouche, a duo of breadsticks wrapped in delicious prosciutto and a sprinkling of Parmesan, a simple bite that delivered exquisite flavors.

Next was the smoked spaghetti, which the bartender told me was his favorite pasta dish on the menu. His high praise was well-deserved. The dish featured bottarga, a salted, cured fish roe, with lemon, and bonito flakes made from fermented smoked skipjack tuna. Its smoky nature and rich umami flavors shone through beautifully.

That was followed by the bauletti, or “little chests” in Italian, which went all out with springtime flavors. A little pillow of stuffed fresh ricotta, a small helping of English peas, and subtle green garlic and lemon flavors.

Next came goat cheese ravioli made with ramp butter, (a bit too similar to the previous dish with its spring flavors, I felt), and then the maltagliati verdi arrived, which translates to “badly cut pasta.”

It’s made with trimmings of dough left over from other pasta shapes, served with a lamb ragù, mint, and taggiasca olives, small olives from North Italy known for their fruity notes.

The impressive millefoglie, made with shredded filo dough called kataifi and crema diplomatica, an Italian sweet cream.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Lastly, the millefoglie, a dessert that means "a thousand layers" in Italian. Executive Pastry Chef Katie Kimble takes the pasta idea and runs with it. Instead of using traditional pastry dough, she uses kataifi, a spun phyllo found in Middle Eastern dishes that looks like a thin noodle. The dish is served with dollops of crema diplomatica, a sweet Italian cream.

The digest

As I finished my meal, a man sat at the bar, dressed in what I could only describe as his Larchmont Best, and asked for a glass of rosé with bubbles. He was waiting for the rest of his party. While he enjoyed his wine, he examined the pasta tasting menu, and after a short while, he said, “That’s too much pasta.”

I couldn’t tell if he was speaking to himself or the server, but I reflected on his statement momentarily, wondering if there was such a thing as too much pasta, and whether I had just experienced it. It was hard to provide an exact answer to that question; however, with a bit more variety, the meal itself has the potential to be transcendent.