Los Angeles has been through a lot lately, so what can one turn to in the need of comfort? Digging into my chicken parmesan at the West Hollywood icon Dan Tana’s, I think I’ve found at least one source.
Whenever I’ve heard of a place called Dan Tana’s, it’s as if it wasn’t a real thing but rather an Italian restaurant fantasy where the likes of Frank Sinatra used to eat. So as I’m sitting in my booth in the small eatery located on the storied Sunset Boulevard, it’s like I’ve found myself in the middle of a fantasy. As Frank would say: Scooby, dooby, doooo.
Opened in 1964, the restaurant has enjoyed an incredible run since those early days when Frank and his crew hit the town. The original idea was, and still is, that it’s a homey, New York-style red sauce Italian, smack in the middle of LA. Think: white and red checkered tablecloths, waiters in tuxedos, and heck, even a fireplace. Terry, our host and part-time game show writer (welcome to LA!), served as a dynamic master of ceremonies, and the incredible Arturo, our veteran waiter, makes sure we try the all-star dishes. These are guys with passion, and passion always wins out.
After their regular breadbasket consisting of Italian bread topped with melted mozzarella, the dishes came out in quick succession: mozzarella in carrozza (simply called mozzarella marinade here); luscious, fried mozzarella in a thick, red, delicious sauce. The lasagna is overflowing with meat, while the aforementioned chicken parmesan is as good as one can get. The menu reflects a showbusiness sensibility, with many items affixing a celebrity name to their place on the menu, including a 12 oz. Steak and Peppers Sinatra or the Veal Milanese alla George Clooney, named after Lake Como’s most famous resident.
There are also deep cuts: a salad named after the widow of Sinatra’s most famous songwriter, Sammy Cahn, is on the menu: the Tita Cahn Salad, with no description. I ordered it and had no idea what to expect. What came out is a massive mound of diced green vegetables: chopped asparagus, lettuce and broccoli, tossed vinegar and pepper. It was a unique treat, and that’s saying a lot considering I typically avoid asparagus like the plague.
You know that feeling when you’re so full that there’s no way you can physically eat one more bite… and then dessert comes out? That happened here, where I sampled their soft tiramisu and a cheesecake so thick and rich, I had to talk to my waiter Arturo about it. Who could have cooked something so rich, so good, so decadent? It turns out the woman who makes it is in her 90s and she was recommended by Sinatra himself to Dan Tana back in the day and has been whipping up sweets here since.
In fact, on my Italian food tour, Dan Tana’s is the only place where I didn’t order a cannoli. That wasn’t the case at L'antica Pizzeria Da Michele, the Hollywood outpost of the historic Naples, Italy, pizza place. I’ve had some of the best meals of my life at their location in New York’s West Village, and I had to see if the food and space matched their Big Apple location I love so much. If you wind up going, don’t be concerned when Google Maps is steering you to a side street where you’re convinced one of the best Italian restaurants in Los Angeles wouldn’t be, with its fences and bare scenery. The door is behind a brown gate, a miniscule logo identifying what’s behind it. (The manager there later told me that all the gate used to have a simple number before the restaurant's logo was affixed to it). Behind those gates, though, lies a property with a large restaurant; around the corner and out the back is a sprawling courtyard; a pizza oven sits dutifully nearby.
The Neapolitan touches are apparent here. On the wall you’d find a plaque explaining the legend of San Genarro, for example. The Margherita pizza is king, as well as fried zucchini blossoms, the latter of which reminded me of a trip to the Amalfi Coast. The pasta here is just as notable, including Tagliatelle Verdi al Pesto which consists of a decadent green pasta made with basil, tossed in a basil pesto and spinach. As if that wasn’t enough, a soft piece of burrata is thrown in for good measure. I half-expected to look beyond the courtyard and see Mount Vesuvius out the window. Instead, it was the Hollywood Hills.
One of the newest Italian restaurants in LA, which opened in the midst of a chaotic January, is Settecento. With my knowledge of the city, when I first look at the address, I’m spooked: it’s not far from nearby Union Station in the heart of downtown, not necessarily known for amazing restaurants and certainly not an area known for having good Italian. But as I approach Settecento and hear the sounds of famed Italian band Maneksin in the distance, I suspect that I’m about to be treated to the real deal. After our Italian host introduced himself, we got right into munching on bread baked in-house as well as some thick, tasty taralli. I squirt out some oil and balsamic (ingeniously from different compartments housed within the same contraption) and gaze out at a courtyard retrofitted to look like a Tuscan garden, complete with a bubbling fountain.
The dishes here range from the classic (caprese) to interesting spins on authentic Italian dishes, like Cannelloni alla Genovese di Manzo; a sort-of inverted dish where traditional Genovese beef sauce is stuffed inside cannelloni. By the time our lunch wound down, out came those aforementioned cannoli, surrounded by dollops of ricotta and berries. Then, the piece de resistance: mini goblets of Lemoncello, on the house.
Other amazing Italian restaurants in LA:
The classic New York import Rao’s, where the martinis are cold, the red sauce is lip-smacking, and the waiters seem like actors out of movies (because some of them are).
Voted by Esquire as one of the best bars in America, Eagle Rock’s Capri Club serves as a modern spin on a 1960s-era Italian restaurant with frozen Negronis and fried polenta sticks.
While not overtly Italian, Musso and Frank is an LA landmark and is regarded as the first place to popularize Fettuccine Alfredo in the United States, after actress Mary Pickford brought them the recipe after a visit to Rome.
If you thought LA had subpar pizza, enter Jon and Vinny’s for delicious 'za and casual, inspired, and perfectly-made dishes that toe the line between homestyle and hip.
