One minute I'm scanning the diners for a familiar face, the next I'm glancing up at the waiter to find that Wolfgang Puck has decided to deliver my steak. It was no different at Osteria Mozza, where I found myself scanning footwear for Mario Batali's orange Crocs. I wasn't expecting him, but then again I wasn't expecting Colin Farrell to walk behind me during dessert, either. This dinner was full of surprises.
Things started off pretty predictable for a high-end restaurant. The menu couldn't be navigated without waiter assistance, the crowd of elites and wannabes were sweating money, and the acoustics made conversation damn near impossible. But hey, at least we weren't seated in the restaurant equivalent of a nosebleed section, as I've often gotten at popular spots like this. The menu is divided into antipasti (which includes the mozzarella bar), primi, secondi, and dolci. The secondi mains were primarily enormous slabs of meat, so my table stuck to what Italians do best—cheese and pasta. Our primi selection included the scamorza panino, a smokey mozzarella sandwich whose bread had slices of Armandino mole salami pressed onto it. The crunchy toasted bread gave way to tangly threads of perfectly pliant cheese that cut the spicy mole and a side of dressed arugula completed the picture. I didn't splurge on these, however, assuming that an Italian restuarant's pastas would steal the show from any other course. My table eagerly ordered the orecchiette with sausage and swiss chard, tagliatelle with oxtail ragu, and the maltagliati with wild boar ragu after much heated debate with each other and guidance on the foreign titles from our waiter.
Perhaps our mistake was ordering two ragus. Perhaps I shouldn't have heeded my mother's advice that calf's brain ravioli would be mushy and tasteless, or maybe it would have helped to heed the waiter's suggestion to try the gnudi, a pasta dumpling Mozza was filling with ricotta and serving with chanterelles. Whatever we did wrong, the primi course brought our first big surprise--or should I call it a disappointment? The pasta at this institution was—gasp!—underwhelming. For being handmade in the back of the very space we were dining in, these slippery noodles and meat sauce tasted like nothing more than just that—noodles and meat sauce. The orecchiette's sausage had remote subtleties, but where was the swiss chard? And the maltagliati (which means hand-made), advertised as delightfully rustic torn shreds of pasta, differed only marginally from the tagliatelle in both flavor and mouth-feel. I actually picked at our side of spinach with crispy garlic with more excitement than dinner itself. Put briefly, I was bored. 
Was I just inept at recognizing good Italian food? Or was Mario's absence from the kitchen a real hindrance? I dog-paddled through the waves of self-doubt and confusion long enough to accept the dessert menu placed in my hands. The sweet cap on meals isn't usually what gets me juiced, but this proved to be the meal-saver this place needed. I should have known—Mario opened the joint with Nancy Silverton, pastry chef extraordinaire and co-founder of L.A. bread cornerstone La Brea bakery. And what the dinner chefs lack in pizzazz, fancy Nancy more than makes up for at meal's end. The three desserts we ordered were, hands down, the best I've ever tasted. I know that blanket statements like that are pretty useless, but this one is worth it's weight in honesty. The apple borsellino with apple cider jelly gelato and caramel sauce had the most delicate flakey pastry and sultry, salty caramel flavor, while the bombolini with huckleberry compote and lemon gelato tasted like a cake donut on uppers. The texture, temperature, sight and smell of these pastries couldn't please my senses more, but the accessories nearly steal the show by staying so true to their titles—the lemon gelato tasted like a lemon, while the caramel sauce made me realize that perhaps I'd never tasted caramel before. The big finish came, however, with a dessert to tug at your heartstrings. The rosemary olive oil cakes with olive oil gelato and rosemary brittle were the reason I decided to come to Mozza, and with such high hopes, a potential let-down was in order. But Nancy couldn't let that happen, could she?
I would not be exaggerating to say that this dish brought slight moisture to my eyes. I had to plant both forearms on the table and just look at it, for a moment. The moist tiny cakes came in shapes like stars and flowers, flecked with rosemary specks; the brittle sat in a neat shiny wave, breaking against the gelato it perched on; and the gelato. The gelato. It wasn't enough for it to taste like olive oil—it had to taste like earthy, expensive, high-quality olive oil. The cakes managed to taste like they'd been soaked in the stuff, yet weren't greasy, and still retained their wintery rosemary warmth. I tread lightly with my fork, never wanting the moment to end. I think I may have had a religious experience with that plate.
It will be hard to go back and order anything else, but Silverton's also crafted a fritelle de riso with Nocello-soaked raisins and banana gelato to tempt me away from rosemary olive oil heaven. And there's also a tre agrumi ghiacciati with grapefruit sorbetto, meyer lemon gelato, and key lime cannoli, and while I haven't the faintest clue what the first part of that means, the side components are enough to make me find out. For a celebrity chef's joint, Osteria Mozza is relatively affordable. I still wouldn't make a habit out of eating dinners here, but that may be due to my sub-par pasta experience. It's probably worth it to give the meats a try, or go for just a starter cheese course. But I'd say save your money and just go in for what they do best—dessert.
Visit mozza-la.com for more info on both Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza
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