It's enough for two to share over a bottle of wine and some bread. The salumi plate is generous, and the products - prosciutto, mortadella, salami, etc. Why buy Caffe Roma, if not to do something different? And while I'm at it, how funny is it to be cooking northern Italian food at a place called Roma? Sciandri already has Ago, Sortino and Toscanova serving the same kind of food.
That's no longer the case, yet these menus live on as if they were sacred texts. But that was back in the days when if a chef needed fresh basil, he had to grow it himself, and when many of the ingredients we take for granted today - extra virgin olive oil, aged Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, salted anchovies, aceto balsamico from Modena - just weren't available here. in the mid-'80s and introduced the city to a more accurate style of Italian cooking than had been the case before. Sciandri is one of the Italian chefs who came to L.A. composed of all-too-familiar dishes, nothing too regional or too rustic. His menu here is not particularly inspiring: It's very much in the usual Los Angeles Italian vein, i.e. But on the occasions I was there, I saw no Sciandri, even though I'd been assured he's cooking at Caffe Roma himself. You can just barely see into the kitchen through a slot in the wall. It's nothing special really, marred by a deli case that gives off a glaring white light. The dining room in back isn't nearly as attractive. Passersby on Canon can now look right into the bar, so there's no hiding out if your wife, for example, strolls by. The outdoor dining area with umbrellas and heat lamps alone can seat up to 70. Still, he now has a lot of seats to fill. But with a built-in clientele who had been coming to the cafe for years, he obviously decided to play it very safe. It would have been great if Sciandri had freshened up the menu as well. He recently closed it for eight months to give the venerable spot a makeover, adding a bar at the front with Murano chandeliers, patterned wallpaper and comfy chairs, a few sidewalk tables out front and sofas for lounging on the cobblestoned side patio. That opportunity came for Caffe Roma when Ago's Agostino Sciandri bought the place in 2006. In Hollywood, though, everybody deserves the chance for a comeback. Times have changed, I needn't point out, and after more than 25 years, Caffe Roma was looking a little tired. It must have been the proximity to that cigar store back in the day when every junior agent and stockbroker was packing Monte Cristos, ever ready to light up whenever and wherever the chance presented itself, that sealed Caffe Roma's role. Who knows why certain people gravitate to certain restaurants? On the same street or just around the corner there are glitzier Italian restaurants, some with arguably better food.
Our esteemed governor used to hang there too (before he went into politics), as well as a whole slew of minor celebrities and well-heeled folks playing hooky, whiling the afternoon away talking sports and women and cars with their pizza and pasta. Tucked behind a shop on Canon Drive, off Le Grand Passage, the courtyard that links a fancy hair salon with an extravagantly stocked cigar store, at Caffe Roma you could expect to find Fabio, the long-haired international model featured on the covers of paperback bodice-rippers, holding court. Though the Beverly Hills cafe doesn't have the name recognition of Valentino, Osteria Angelini or Drago, say, it has been, for many years, the hangout for a certain louche 90210 set that treated it as a kind of insider's clubhouse. The name Caffe Roma probably doesn't ring a bell with most Angelenos.
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