Piccolo in Venice

dineLA Restaurant Week always sneaks up on me.  In fact, I was lucky enough this year to have gotten a reminder a couple days before it started so I didn't miss it completely.  Honestly though, a couple days advanced notice is hardly enough to sift through all of the restaurants that participate in Restaurant Week and finally decide on which one or two to visit. 

We actually turned this decision into a science project, complete with an Excel spreadsheet with sort and filter functionality.  Ultimately, it really just came down to the special Restaurant Week menu offerings (each restaurant has a set three-course menu that will run you either $, $$, or $$$), which are fortunately available for pre-viewing on the dineLA website!  There are a lot of really amazing-looking restaurants that offer Restuarant Week menus, but so many of those menus feature a choice of chicken (fancified because its 'Jidori' chicken...seriously), beef (usually with some French fancification), or salmon (which isn't fancy but some people think it is).   Knowing that none of these have much chance of impressing me, we decided to avoid the places with "boring" choices, even if they were the big name, fancy restaurants.

Piccolo, located in Venice Beach, immediately caught my attention because their special menu offered FIVE courses instead of the standard three.  Five is more than three...more is better.  Piccolo's got extra credit for the fact that there was NO chicken, beef, or salmon on their Restaurant Week menu.  We generally don't jump for joy over Italian food, mostly because Italian food in America is so often spaghetti with meatballs or lasagna or something else slopped with marinara sauce.  Careful scrutiny of the Piccolo's menu revealed no such marinara nor meatball, and therefore we had our winner!

I had a heck of a time making reservations at Piccolo's, which I later learned is due to the fact that they only have twelve tables in the restaurant.  Cute!  After a bit of restaurant research, I also learned that Piccolo's essentially told the Zagat ratings people to take their guide and shove it you-know-where due to a disagreement over the restaurant's rating (they actually asked to be removed from the guide).  Finally...a restaurant with some personality!!

A trip to Venice is always a bit of an adventure. In the past, I'd only been through Venice on a bike in daylight, when the crowd is a bit weird.  This time, it was night and I was in heels and the crowd was weirder...and had a bonfire.  Piccolo's is on the corner right by the main Venice Beach walkway, so the weird street crowd certainly adds to the experience.  It's a tiny place, but absolutely adoreable inside.  They have an open air kitchen, authenic Italian decor, and a narrow curvy staircase that I wish I had climbed to find out what's at the top.  This is a perfect date restaurant, in my opinion, because there's just enough hustle and bustle that you have to lean in just a bit to talk to the person across the table (and nothing is over-garlic-ed to make that problemmatic).

Wine should accompany Italian food, so we picked out a half-bottle even though it's not included in the special set-price menu (that's where they get you!).  The waiter recommended something non-Californian (Italian...duh), so naturally I had no idea what it was, but it was absolutely delicious (and non-headache forming, for me at least).   In an effort to slow the wine's effects (or at least that was my excuse),  I dove straight into the basket of fresh bread.  Breads actually...there were different types: a classic and beautifully baked Italian bread, and some tiny knots of cheese-flavored bread that were absolutely heavenly.   I did not ask for more bread to avoid embarrassment, but looking back, I'm certain it would have been worth every bit of the embarrassment to eat a basketful of the delicious knots of cheese bread...perhaps then I wouldn't continue to dream about them...

For our first courses, we chose a duck prosciutto with a gorgonzola "drizzle" and a watercress salad with pine nuts, fresh shaved parmesan, and hearts of palm.  Both dishes were incredible.  I've never had anything with gorgonzola that wasn't completely overpowered by gorgonzola flavor, but they somehow manage to let the prosciutto shine with the surpisingly subtle gorgonzola flavor in the drizzle.  The watercress salad is light and fresh, but bold with delicious flavor and texture from the perfectly complementing ingredients.

Next to the table were seared scallops with a truffle shaving over parmesan fondue, and seared ricotta with wild mushrooms and pancetta.  Nothing else I can say will make your mouth water any more than it already is, and it should be.  My only complaint here is that I wished I had more, but with three other courses on their way, I was better off without more.

In true Italian form, our pasta was served separately from the "main course."   Pumpkin garganelli with porcini mushrooms, leeks, and fresh parmesan.  The pumpkin flavor in the pasta is subtle, but absolutely delicious paired with the creamy leek sauce and earthy porcinis.  Our main course was a baked pheasant breast, rolled in speck (prosciutto-like pig product), and stuffed with truffled-honey roasted pears.   I was actually shocked at how much I liked this given that I generally don't go nuts over fowl.  I'll admit the pheasant itself was a bit dry (typical fowl!), but the speck was crispy and salty and so much more pleasant than the typical bacon-wrapping.  The roasted pear stuffing provided a perfect balance of sweet to accompany the savory meats.

Thank goodness Restaurant Week menus all include dessert...I always want dessert!  I will admit that, although I always enjoy my dessert, I am particularly critical of desserts, and few desserts really shock me.  Piccolo's desserts, however, blew me away: flourless chocolate cake and chocolate-cream pastry puffs.  The flourless chocolate cake is incredibly rich and creamy, but not the typical super-sweet uncomfortable richness so common in chocolate desserts, and the pastry puffs are perfectly light and fluffly, like chocolate flavored clouds.  I used to think it was only in movies and commercials that people closed their eyes when they ate something delicious.  I actually closed my eyes to eat my dessert, and I still don't really understand why, but it was THAT amazing. 

You can keep your Olive Garden and meatballs...I'll take a table at Piccolo's any day!