Calling it “the crowning heart of her dream,” Barbara Pollastrini has opened her new tasting menu restaurant, da Barbara, in Hollywood. The Rome expat has long called Los Angeles home, and she’s cooked on movie sets, as an executive chef at restaurants, and on cooking competition shows, but this is her first solo effort—and it looks stunning.
Guests enter da Barbara through a glass façade that exposes the apartment-like interior, which has five small tables on the first floor, and two larger tables and an open kitchen on the second floor where Pollastrini does her work.
She’s created an opening menu with seven dishes, five savory courses and two desserts, that reflect her philosophies about cooking seasonally and “with a deep passion for the art of gastronomy,” as she writes on the restaurant’s website.
The menu opens with homemade ricotta served with focaccia and tomato confit, then moves onto a gnocco alla romana, dubbed “Almost a Carbonara,” with house-cured guanciale, crispy artichokes, and grated egg yolk. Next are: Forest Medley, a mushroom tart with beef tartare, caramelized onions, and hazelnuts; Is It Winter Yet, which pairs pumpkin tortelli with orange, candied pears, and Pecorino Romano fondue; and Rollin’, a filet mignon roll stuffed with prosciutto and Parmigiano Reggiano, served with seasonal vegetables and caramelized onions.
For dessert, Pollastrini starts with a liquorice semifreddo with mint, then caps the menu with a show-stopping “Cannolo That Thinks it’s a Strudel,” with sabayon cream and apple flambé.
She opened da Barbara just last month in a space that she says she designed and built with friends. The new restaurant, which she likens to a dinner party atmosphere, instantly puts Los Angeles’s already impressive Italian dining scene into the spotlight in the new year. After being a supporting player for years, Pollastrini seems ready for her star turn.
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da Barbara, 6411 Fountain Ave., LW4, Los Angeles, CA 90028, @da_barbara_p, barbarapollastrini.com
