Angelini Osteria a Home for Italian Food

Though Gino Angelini has spent his entire career in high-end Italian restaurants both here and in Italy, he dreamed of someday opening an osteria, a casual place where he could cook simple, rustic Italian food. Now he’s finally done it. You can find the former Rex il Ristorante and Vincenti chef cooking his heart out day and night at Angelini Osteria on Beverly Boulevard.

Within shouting distance of El Coyote, Angelini Osteria is already packed at night, and getting busy at lunchtime, too. It’s a small, but good-looking place, so subtly designed it takes awhile to notice the lovely details--the pizza peel hung in front of the pizza oven, the faience jar of biscotti on a high shelf, the vase of long-stemmed roses on the bar, the comfortable lighting level. When the restaurant is full, though, it can be painfully noisy.

The small menu is filled out with a handful of specials each night. To start, there’s a mussel and clam soup served in a lidded bowl to hold in all its fragrance. It’s just the shellfish steamed with a splash of white wine, a little olive oil and garlic. It’s served with bruschetta, or toasted bread, to soak up all the delicious juice. I’d also recommend the cannellini beans with sausage, and malfattini with borlotti beans, which turns out to be a soul-satisfying version of pasta e fagioli made with earthy brown beans and a pasta the size of bulgur wheat grains.

Though the menu doesn’t offer as many pasta dishes as you’d expect--or hope--consider the spaghetti alla chitarra (cut on a wooden frame strung with wire) in an understated lamb ragu. Sometimes there’s pennette (small ribbed penne) napped in Taleggio, cream and house-cured guanciale. It’s as perfect a pasta dish as you could find. But where is Angelini’s lusty amatriciana or his mother’s lasagne? The menu could use a carbonara, too. Nobody in L.A. does these kinds of dishes better, and so it’s somewhat of a disappointment not to find them here.

What’s really wonderful is the stinco, a special. That’s pork shank finished off in the wood-burning pizza oven. Sliced off the bone at the table, it comes with good pureed potatoes and emerald rapini sparked with pepperoncini.

At lunch, along with pizzas and pastas, Angelini is making piadina , (a flatbread from Emilia-Romagna) filled with arugula, mozzarella, and prosciutto, or porchetta (tender pork), tomato and eggplant.

A few dishes seem too refined for the setting and concept. White truffles, lobster salad or orange sauce don’t really make sense in an osteria the way that veal shank or the bistecca alla fiorentina do. It’s encouraging to see someone cooking the way an Italian chef would cook for himself at home. I’m betting that’s the way a lot of people would love to eat.

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Angelini Osteria, 7313 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles; (323) 297-0070; fax (323) 297-0072; www.angeliniosteria.com. Open for dinner daily, lunch Monday through Saturday. Dinner appetizers, $7 to $14.50; main courses, $16 to $30; less at lunch. Valet parking.