243 S. San Pedro St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-947-3329
Price: $$
By MICHAEL AUSHENKER | Contributing Writer
Photos by Rich Schmitt | Staff Photographer
On an otherwise nondescript block on Little Tokyo’s southern edge, first-time restaurant owner David King and his skilled gourmet thin-crust chef Duke Gervais have created a culinary and cultural oasis with Baldoria DTLA, and indeed, it’s a smashing debut.
Inside, a cool, spacious, somewhat stylish room awaits, wherein King and his sidekick Tucker, both friendly, laid-back and eager to enhance your dining experience, set the thermostat for Baldoria’s chill tempo.
Opening Baldoria, King drew inspiration from the aperitivo bars and tapas bars he visited in Rome and Barcelona.
“I wanted a place that put equal emphasis on its food and drink program with an inviting, casual ambiance,” King told the Palisadian-Post. “The name ‘Baldoria’ loosely translates to a big festive party or a really good time. On our wall, we distill this meaning into a one-word neon sign: revelry.”
Our meal proved sublime. While a board of cheese and deli meats may be standard issue at many French-influenced restaurants, the Cheese & Charcuterie here is not to be overlooked. A lot of love, passion and knowledge goes into this charcuterie board as King goes well beyond the prosciutto-and-Manchego clichés, combining Brillat-Savarin, Raclette and Prosciutto di Parma.
“This is the best prosciutto di parma I’ve ever tasted,” King said (which I will second here), explaining that this prosciutto, aged 500 days, is dried in the traditional open-air-barns method.
This board also contains finocchiona (“large fennel”), a peppercorn-cured meat from Armandino Batali’s company in Seattle.
As if all of this is not enough, the charcuterie board also contains a wonderfully salty, pungent Gorgonzola Piccante—a stronger version of the traditional blue cheese served in northern Italy—plus, of course, some apricots, dates and almonds.
Once we cleared our charcuterie board, the “No Meat” appetizer menu turned out to be inventive enough for us to forget that these items contained no meat. The lively Citrus Stuffed Endive made for a fresh and fruity start to our meal. There are also Crispy Brussel Sprouts (which are sprouting up at a lot of LA digs these days). A standout, Baldoria’s Ricotta Toast, is comprised of fresh ricotta, vanilla kumquat compote, mint and lemon.
From the “Meat” section, our Fritto Misto di Mare, with batter-blanketed calamari, butternut squash and a lemon aioli dipping sauce, was the only representation of deep-fried food that we ordered and as finger foods go, it’s scrumptious.
Gourmet pizza fuels the restaurant’s centrifuge and beyond the classic Margherita (here served with San Marzano tomato conserva, Grande Mozzarella and fresh basil), the choice of toppings gets very, very creative.
We were immediately drawn to Charred Octopus, a wonderful pie incorporating tender baby octopi, caramelized cipollini and charred radicchio cream sauce, taking two seemingly disparate Italian culinary traditions—the pizza and octopus—and merging them seamlessly.
If you lean toward spicy foods, try Hot Mama’s (replacing the similar Caliente), with its spicy San Marzano, jalapeno chicken sausage, cherry pepper, shisito and avocado crème fraiche, all swirled up in a passionate, hot-blooded affair.
Lil Tokyo Steak pays tribute to the restaurant’s nabe. However, even though this pizza is layered with miso marinated flat-iron steak, yuzu kosho, shiitake mushrooms, shisito, cherry tomato, red onion and mizuna, it feels more European gourmand than Japanese per se, but it’s still delicious.
Mrs. Croque is exactly what this pie sounds like: a pizza topped with a croque monsieur. Here, that means Black Forest ham atop melted Grand Cru Gruyere and browned butter béchamel; all of it topped with Chino Valley eggs, sunny side up. This pie turned out to be our personal favorite of the four, with Charred Octopus a close second.
Dessert here is minimal yet killer. Noteworthy: Persimmon Pudding Cake, some next level stuff with Fuyu persimmons, candied pecans, rum caramel sauce and fresh cream, all for $6.
Accompanying all of this fantastic food is a nice program of bottled cocktails. They include the WhistlePig Rye extravaganza Don’t Burn the Pig, gin-based Sloe Your Roll and the clean, refreshing Not So Basic B, a delicious concoction of Loft and Beer Vodka, lemon, pamplemousse and egg white. Other cocktails include Baldoria’s twist on the Cuba Libre and Old Fashioned, plus they have an extensive selection of beer (draft, darks, ales, sours and high IPA varieties) and spirits, which include the full range of rye, agave, scotch, gin, etc. plus bottles from Ireland, Japan and Taiwan.
We really appreciated the attention to detail here, down to the cucumber-, lemon- and mint-infused drinking water served casually here and the wonderful bread chips that accompany meal items, house-made from Chef Gervaise’s pizza dough.
The beauty of the atmosphere here is that one can dress formal or informal and either would match the hip, hipster-ish décor, replete with handsome bar and slick bar counter, with sports games projected on a stone wall.
Big props to Chef Gervais for executing King’s vision with supreme precision and creativity. This King and this Duke, working in tandem, are certainly
among LA’s restaurant royalty at the moment.
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