Autumn Meal at Drago Centro

 

Any regular reader of The Minty knows I spend a lot of time at Drago Centro. I was parked as usual at the bar for happy hour but I was looking forward to dinner later in the evening. I was excited to share Drago Centro with my fine dining partner who had never been before. We studied the menu and decided to go with4 items; the langoustine carpaccio, the Dungeness crab pasta, the mushroom risotto  and the veal ossobuco. We would share everything.

I was really happy Chef Celestino Drago was in the house though the Chef de Cuisine, Ian Gresik is always great. I chatted with Chef Celestino what to order and he of course recommended getting whatever I liked. He was too modest to even mention they were doing a special menu with truffles.

 

After our great amuse of fish croquettes, we moved onto our langoustine. I loved that the restaurant split everything for us. The pictures represent individual portions.My dining partner especially enjoyed the apple in this dish. The cool fruit contrasted very well with the creamy seafood.

Our Dungeness crab pasta was beautiful. The fresh crab with cherry tomatoes and basil was very classic Italian cooking but the noodles really made me think of Asian noodles. Which I suppose would be fair since legend has it Marco Polo brought noodles back to Italy. In any case, I could have eaten a whole portion by myself.

I had insisted to my fine dining partner we get risotto. She makes risotto almost weekly and resisted for the barest second. I love Drago Centro’s risotto and this one topped with white truffle shavings was amazing.We had only ordered the regular risotto but they treated us to the truffle shavings.

I had to show both our plates. My fine dining partner got the bone marrow and I got a bit more of the meat. She confessed to me she had never had bone marrow before and having Drago Centro’s possibly ruined her for others. I loved the farro and brussel sprouts with this dish. So autumnal.

Our server told us the chef just “had this lamb lying around” and so they sent it out to us. I don’t believe this is the leg of lamb on the menu. The preparation of this dish included a thick berry sauce that was fantastic with the lamb. I also loved the creamy polenta with it.

By this time, we were too stuffed for dessert. Next time. For there will always be a next time.

Drago Centro

525 S Flower St
Ste 120
Los Angeles, CA 90071
(213) 228-8998