Mollie Does Deli

Chef Mollie Ahlstrand has been a local icon for three decades. Her treasured Trattoria Mollie on Coast Village Road set the bar for Italian cuisine in the region, and welcomed patrons like Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and Ahlstrand’s personal favorite customer ever, Kirk Douglas. In 2018, she moved from Montecito to Santa Barbara proper, opening Mollie’s on State Street next to The Granada Theater. But, as she pointed out in a recent interview, “There was the mudslide and the Thomas Fire and COVID … and the rent and the taxes.” Ahlstrand closed the spot in 2021.

So it might seem surprising she’s back with Mollie’s Italian Deli in the Shepard Place Shops in Carpinteria. The strip mall storefront has seating for a dozen people, plus a few more outside, and is squeezed between the Culture Skate Factory and an animal medical clinic. Coast Village Road the location decidedly is not, despite the attractive white tile walls inside and the homey copper pots, clearly functional and not just decorative, along the walls.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Pasta Perfect

Italian food doesn't have it easy. I mean, the tricky part is it's everywhere like air, and I say that as someone who grew up in northern Jersey, where the air is heavier. Sure, we all like air, but it's easy to take for granted, and have you tried any of that pure oxygen? And I refuse to go to more exotic places, like denying yourself air for fun.

Turns out the air is rarer at Factory Kitchen. At the outer edge of the Arts District, when you approach it for the first time you're thinking much more factory than kitchen in a desolate area where stopping at stoplights makes you a tad nervous (and to get from it to DTLA, you'll pass through Skid Row, home of its own strain of TB). Inside it's still pretty factoried-out, but the owners wanted it that way, so that's a kind of charming. And the food is so much more than charming it ends up seeming some sort of oasis, a sense that even amidst massive concrete pillars this grace can happen.

Fro grace is the only word to describe mandilli di seta, that green pasta at the top of the photo above. This handkerchief pasta is where delicious and delicate deliquesce into one thing, a miracle of pasta flavor in something so fine. It's sauced in a Ligurian almond basil pesto with none of the sharp edges you might get in some hearty pesto, even the garlic refined, and the almond flavor much more interesting than pine nuts. Then that's the whole dish. It sort of threatens you to call it too simple, but it recalls the stories of a master artist, when asked to send sample work to get a commission, simply drawing one perfect circle of paint on paper in one quick brushstroke, and saying, "Take that to your patron." Of course perfection is simple--that's exactly why it's so easy to mess up.

The rest of the meal was delightful, too, from the raviolini di pesce you also see in that photo--much heartier dough, but sitting in a "crustacean sauce" that is as wondrous as that name might suggest, plus four exactly prepared mussels, none of that overcooked shellfish issue you so often get with pasta.

We started with another essay in the brilliance of simplicity, the cremosella salad, a mound of kale (really really good baby kale) and pea shoots (all of freshness) and green beans cooked miraculously to a tender-snap (what method?) in just enough dressing. And then creamy mozzarella, which is not burrata, and I didn't know existed (and can't confirm does anywhere else, if the internet can be trusted). Instead of cream in the center, like burrata, the inside is more like a brie-consistency, but still very much mozz. Seems healthier, and the chalkiness paired well with the acid and lemon in the dressing.

We all owe Italian places an apology. Of course, given the chef here--Angelo Auriana--worked at Valentino for nearly two decades, it's not odd he can make such ethereal food.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Mixologist Alberto Battaglini hadn’t seen Chef Luca Crestanelli in nearly a decade, since back when they attended the same culinary school in Verona, Italy, where they both are from. “It was my second night in Los Angeles, and I walked in to a new job at Bar Toscana, and there was Luca,” Battaglini recalls. “We were like, ‘Whoa!’ Somehow we both ended up there at the same time.”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.

When Batali's in Your Eye Like a Big Food Mall, That's Eataly!

The worst thing about Eataly--beyond, of course, it's merely at best first blush clever name--is its muchness. It's sort of a Costco of Italian gustatory greatness. The best thing about Eataly--it's sort of a Costco of Italian gustatory greatness. There's no way you could eat it all, even if you were as big as Mario Batali himself, so mostly you walk through with your eyes agog and your salivary glands mimicking Niagara. For it all looks good--it's Italian food, after all. Even just the marbled swirls of perfect prosciutto is enough to make you want to pen prose poems.

In case you've never been, it goes like this--New York City, whole block, extra glam points for being across the street from the Flatiron Building. Walk in and it's a bit of a maze of a market, arranged around topics like kitchen goods or cheese or the wine store that has its own separate entrance, plus 11 restaurants/prepared food stops. For instance, you can get lattes that had some fancier name than latte that will be some of the best coffee you've ever had, very rich and, yes, European. Plus pretty.

After that, the ogle is on. More dried pasta than there are ways to misspell strozzapreti, more gorgeous Alessi-designed gadgets than guesses as to what the gadgets actually do, more imported artisanal beers that you've never seen imported before, more more more. It's impressive and at a certain point almost frightening, to live in a world so rich of things you never before knew you needed to want.

And we're not talking about a watering down of things--this isn't Disney does Italy featuring your host Pinocchio (be sure to buy your wooden dummy on the way out the gift shop). It's all fine quality stuff, often at the price too match. At least the restaurants aren't too dear, and we can vouch for the pasta at La Pizza & Pasta, as well as the good service, and that it is enough separated from the market floor you don't feel to hustled or rushed. I savored my Gnocchi al Ragu di Agnello, the gnocchi tasty and substantial but not too doughy, the lamb ragu just what you want of anything long-stewed, flavor left to sit in itself and become more if itself. (There's that more theme again.)

We also had to take the elevator ride to the rooftop Birreria, even though we had already lunched. It's probably even more pleasant when the roof's glass can be cracked open on a warm day (we were there on a chilly, if clear, November one), but it's a charming space with some good Manhattan tower views. And beer. The house brews have been dreamt up by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Teo Musso of Baladin, and Leonardo Di Vincenzo of Birra Del Borgo (alas Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River dropped out, despite having clearly an Italian enough name), and on cask they are truly unique. We had the chestnut mild ale Wanda and the thyme pale ale Gina and preferred Gina, liking the herb attack more than being nuts for the nuts. Even better, the bartender was one of those teasingly-insulting types you sort of hope you get in NYC, even if he was too young and handsome to fill out the stereotype of the crotchety old bar keep perfectly. This, I guess, is a sign of progress.

Then, just before we left, to give us one last "this might be some sort of set for a reality show of a life you aren't worthy enough to live" vibe, we walked by cheftestant Travis Masar from the current season of Top Chef. Ah, New York.