Silver Lake: Italian Dinner at Kettle Black

 

I finally made it over to Kettle Black, a popular Italian restaurant in Silver Lake. It’s right next door to Sawyer and near Pine and Crane. Los Angeles is having its love affair with Italian food and I don’t mind it at all as I love Italian food. Some might argue this is closer to Italian American food but you won’t find those overly-saucy red sauce entrees here.

We started out with a couple of drinks. My friend had a Negroni and I tried their mezcal cocktail. Their original drinks are just named by the spirit. I learned about Centerbe, an Italian herbal liqueur, which made my cocktail unusually bitter.

Negroni – gin, Campari, sweet vermouth

Mezcal cocktail- mezcal, dry vermouth, verjus, Centerbe liqueur, bitters

 

 

I really dug this octopus salad. The sherry vinaigrette really makes this dish sing. And the finely diced onions and cucumber gave it a nice crunch.

 

Hey, it’s Italiano! Get some meatballs as nonna says. Or I say. The Minty says you should get some nice meatballs.

 

I tasted my friend’s bourbon cocktail which sounded delicious with taro-gobo cordial. We debated eating the garnish but decided it was just more fun to look at.

Bourbon cocktail – bourbon, amaretto, taro-gobo cordial, tea, lemon

 

Another favorite dish this night was the eggplant. I love eggplant in general but Kettle Black’s version just got added to my top 10 eggplant dishes in LA.

 

 

I usually get either mushroom or sausage pizza. We opted to go with the mushroom this evening. It was a tiny bit too salty for me but it’s still good. I probably would have liked the bottom to be a bit crispier but it’s hard when the edges were quite “done.” Ah well, I’m not much of a pizza crust sort of girl anyway.

 

I really enjoyed the Scotch cocktail. It wasn’t your typical Manhattan variation (aka Rob Roy) but a perfectly refreshing drink that I call a patio drink. I was a bit skeptical of the sour apple liqueur but it was well-balanced and not sweet at all.

Scotch cocktail – Scotch whisky, Leopold’s sour apple liqueur, Averna, lemon, bitters

 

We started jonesing for pasta mid-way through our pizza so what do food loving folks do? They get their pizza boxed up and order the pasta. Our server recommended the parsley tagliatelle with pine nuts, pea shoot, English peas and arugula basil pesto. While I thought the pizza was a little salty, the pasta actually needed a bit more. Though if you eat all the cheese like I did, you’re probably better off not over-salting your food.

 

 

We had the panna cotta for dessert which came with ripe mangoes. It was a light way to end our carbo-loading.

 

Kettle Black 

3705 W Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026  —  (323) 641-3705

 

© The Minty  2017