Drago Centro (http://www.dragocentro.com/)
Drago Centro is the new(ish) installation of Chef Celestino Drago (Drago, Santa Monica), and serves high end “luxury Italian.” The space is quite striking, encased in glass and evoking Celestino’s native Venice, Italy roots. We were seated promptly and received impeccable service throughout our entire meal.
I opted for the LA restaurant week, pre-fixe menu and unlike other pre-fixe menus (especially for restaurant week) this offered three choices in each of the three courses. I opted for the antipasto plate, braised veal cheeks with endive, parsnip and almonds and the prosecco mouse with fennel crumble and citrus. Sara selected the langoustine carpaccio with raspberries, mirco herbs, citrus dressing as a first course and the house made spinach and ricotta cavatelli with venison mushroom ragout as her main and the bomboloni (donuts y’all!) for desert.
I appreciate high end “luxury dining” as much as the next man however, for me, Italian cooking is about simplicity. Simplicity of ingredients, flavors and the feeling that when you eat your meal you are in Italy. I take nothing away from Celestino’s talent, as he is a phenomenal chef and restaurateur, however throughout the course of my meal I could not escape the fact that I was sitting in a beautiful restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, the meal and the preparations never transported me to Italy (except one!). Each of the components of my antipasto (white flour tweel, rolled prosciutto, burrata, broccoli, preserved red and yellow peppers, and mushroom mousse) were by themselves decent, but never came together as a dish and I was given no instruction on how to bring them together, if that was the desired intention. The saving grace on the plate was the mushroom mouse atop toasted pine nuts. Silky in texture and an aroma of freshly picked forest mushroom that pleasantly stayed with me until the second course. Sara’s langoustine carpaccio on the other hand was marvelous! Delicate paper thin slices of langoustine, so thin you could see right through, balanced harmoniously by the tart freshness of the raspberries, slight bitterness of the micro herbs and citrus dressing that brought all the components beautifully together in your mouth. This was the one dish that took me straight to Venice, standing atop the Rialto bridge looking down on the grand canal. The braised veal cheeks were prepared well enough and the presentation was elegant but the veal stock reduction overpowered the supple veal flavor and I would have liked a bit more of the parsnip puree. The endive was expertly roasted and did not have any of its characteristic bitterness, which was an unexpected surprise, but I think a bitter component would have cut the rich veal demiglace. Sara’s cavatelli with venison ragout was very rich and all the flavors blended well. I anticipated the delicate flavor of the ricotta and spinach cavatelli to get lost in the earthy ragout of venison and mushroom, but it was quite the contrary. Each ricotta cavatelli of goodness mellowed out the strong flavors of venison and mushroom and the fact that the venison was ground opposed to shredded, as is common in most ragouts, was a welcomed derivation. We have had better prosecco mousse in our lives, but I did enjoy the crunch of the fennel crumble. The anise of the fennel was a good foil to the overly tart citrus segments. The bomboloni were expertly fried, crispy outside and soft, doughy inside with the classic Italian combo of balsamic and strawberries. The marscapone gelato was delicious but the subtle flavor of marscapone got lost in the rest of the plate.
Drago centro is a beautiful space with a well known chef and decent food. If you live or work downtown and are in need of a good power lunch or dinner spot (esp to entertain clients), look no further. If you are looking for an ethereal Italian experience to bring out your inner Italiano, I would encourage you to venture elsewhere - possibly towards Piccolo Ristorante in Venice, but that is for another post. TimB
