The restaurant is situated where the old Gina Lee's Bistro used to be. It has been renovated and looks good; modern, clean lines, spacious enough that you don't feel you are eavesdropping on your next door neighbor. I love that the restaurant is open from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and later on the weekends. Sandi and I took advantage of that and made a reservation at 4:00 p.m. early enough to leave for the Pantages to see a play at 8:00 p.m.
We were the first customers. We were greeted by Sean, and later Vince and Andreanna, the very proud owners. You could see Chef Fabio busy at the kitchen working his magic. The bread they brought was freshly toasted accompanied by a dish of olive oil with herbs. I added some freshly grated parmesan to the oil which made it even better.
I wanted to order the Calamari e Cavoletti, shallot sauteed calamari with Brussels sprouts, pancetta, grilled polenta in a garlic sauce but since Sandi only eats the creature fried, I would have had to eat everything. We agreed on just ordering an entree. After reading the menu, I decided to have the Lasagnetta which is not your typical Lasagna as you might imagine This one is made of fresh pasta of course, with a hint of cocoa powder (don't say eewww), lamb ragu, porcini mushrooms, fresh herbs and a parmesan sauce. This sounded so good that I was not willing to split as we normally split 2 entrees in case one is not too good. I had a feeling, an intuition that this would be special. Call it, Karina's intuition. the lasagnetta did not disappoint. We were both engrossed in the task of trying to figure out how this dish came into being! It looked pretty with what looked like a sea of very light cream surrounding the pasta. It looked like thin slices of beef. In fact I almost thought I was eating the most tender slice of beef when I suddenly realized it was pasta! The lamb ragu was outstanding. We once had a pasta dish with lamb ragu that Chef Fabio made at Gaetano's but only made it for a month. I was disappointed when it was no longer in the menu. Back to the lasagnetta; Sandi had left over sauce so her solution was not to waste the left over bread by sweeping the pieces to dry out her plate.
Dessert was the Affogato. Since this is solely made with espresso, I knew I was the only one eating this as Sandi doesn't like anything coffee. I was disappointed as it was not strong enough. To prove that, Sandi had a few bites and she didn't mind it. The coffee they served was the real thing. Excellent!
We really cannot wait to go back. The problem is I won't be able to try the other items on the menu as I will have to have the Lasagnetta again. A bigger problem is.... since my oatmeal diet hasn't worked out, Sandi and I "sort of" agreed we would have to eliminate pasta and bread for our diet for the next couple of weeks. We didn't sign any legal documents and since promises are sometimes broken....who knows?
Congratulations to Vince, Andreanna, Sean and Chef Fabio. You have a great thing going. I just hope you will always have room for me because I predict you will be very busy all the time once the news has spread.
Bettolino Kitchen is located at 211 Palos Verdes Blvd. in Redondo Beach, California.
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