We took Mom and Dad (my in-laws) out to dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday May 10, 2009. We went to Bottega Louie, a new restaurant and gourmet market in the redeveloped Brockman building on the corner of Seventh Street and Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A. We first read about it in the Downtown News and heard that it was rated as one of the top 10 new restaurants in Downtown L.A. by the L.A. Times. Later, the L.A. Downtown News “Best of Downtown” issue rated it as the best new upscale restaurant. The restaurant gets its name from Bottega being Italian for market and Louie being a catchy name. It was actually the first tenant at the Brockman building that was a highly anticipated adaptive reuse development. I remember hearing about it at the Downtown Living Weekend in early 2005. It has since been renovated but cost overruns have forced the developer into bankruptcy. Originally planned as condos for sale, they have since announced that they’ll go the apartment rental route. Now that they’re in bankruptcy, everything is in limbo except, luckily, the restaurant on the ground floor, Bottega Louie, that opened in April and will remain open.
We walked to the restaurant, mostly north up Grand Avenue from our sister- and brother-in-law’s loft in South Park. We passed the Stillwell Hotel with the Indian Restaurant Gill’s and a new diner called Mother Road. There was a stand for valet parking right near the corner of Seventh and Grand. The restaurant entrance is right there on the ground floor and most of its walls are glass windows looking out onto the street. We actually entered into the section that’s the gourmet market. There’s a counter with freshly baked items behind a the glass such as many colorful macaroons and some cannele pastries that my wife later tried. Shelves against the floor contained house brand and gourmet brand pastas, pasta sauces, jams and preserves, and other non-perishables. The place was crowded, probably due to Mother’s Day, but when we gave our name to the hostess at the desk in the middle of the restaurant she said the wait was only five minutes. We looked around in the market and they came and got us very soon.
To get to our table we passed a large open kitchen, some elegant glassware stacked on trays, and a separate kitchen station where they made the pizzas. There are many tables in the eastern half of the restaurant. It has high ceilings and slightly dark lighting, white tables, chairs, ceilings, pillars, and walls (at least those walls that aren’t windows). The floors are shiny gray stone and some counters and walls have elegant dark wood paneling with gold-colored trim. They put the six of us at a long combination of 2-3 tables near the northeast corner. Along the window near us were some shiny silver-colored Champagne buckets on stands. The table cloth was white to match the rest of the color scheme.
They brought us menus. Most of their choices are Italian but there’s such a wide variety. They have salads, pizzas, pastas, soups (including a pasta fagiole similar to a recipe we made recently only that was made with Italian sausage and Bottega Louie made theirs with prosciutto), entrees, over 30 small plates ranging in price from $6-$8, poultry, meat, and fish. The prices were fairly reasonable such as $12 for the meat and seafood pastas, $6 for soups, $12 for sandwiches, $14 for entrees, $23 for fish, and $33 for steak. After seeing the Fettuccine Belmondo under pastas my brother-in-law mentioned that Belmondo was also the name of a famous actor in Europe.
For drinks, our sister- and brother-in-law brought a bottle of wine that the wait staff poured without charging a corkage fee. The servers also brought us drinking water in elegant clear glass bottles with long necks. The water came flat or sparkling. Mom mentioned that in the Philippines they call this kind of sparkling water “soda” and what we call sodas they call soft drinks. I should also mention that the salt shakers on our table contained pink colored salt. The servers brought us small loaves of sliced crusty bread wrapped in white paper. It wasn’t exactly French or Italian bread and reminded me of Ecuadorean bread.
After some deliberation we placed our orders. First, they brought out an elevated rack for pizza and served that first: the clam pizza that also had roasted yellow and red pepper, mozzarella, and pecorino Romano cheese. The peppers made it a very colorful pizza and my wife said it was very good, especially with the clams cooked just right. Next they brought our entrees. My sister- and brother-in-law had wanted to order the Arrancini Arrabbiata but the waiter said they were out of that so they ordered the Fettuccine Belmondo instead. I enjoyed my three Kurobuta pork chops. The many grill marks corresponded to excellent smoky grilled flavor. They were fully cooked, juicy and not chewy at all. Even better was the house-made applesauce that came with the pork chops in its own metal serving boat. The applesauce tasted freshly made with little chunks of apple and no added sweetener. It didn’t need any and went well with the chops. In all it was a lot of food, but very good.
As a table we got a wide variety of food. My wife ordered the Trenne pasta that she said was pretty good but she felt the rib eye in it taste more like stew meat than rib eye. My mother- and father-in-law ordered the mussels and clams steamed in white wine broth. They shared some with us and they were good. We also enjoyed some of the Portobello fries that my sister-in-law ordered. For drink, my wife enjoyed her blueberry lemonade that had a purple color and contained many large blueberries.
They brought out a dessert menu that listed some interesting choices such as Bulgarini Sorbet and Peanut Butter terrine. There were also cheese and dessert wines. We didn’t have dessert because we planned to get ice cream from New Zealand Natural at L.A. Live. On the way out we shopped at the gourmet market. We got some Bottega Louie-brand ragu sauce that came in a large jar and a jar of Bonne ____________, strawberry preserves from France. The cashier said the preserves were very good. We tried it later and found it was sweet enough to be a dessert or a fruit spread. Dad brought my wife a cannele pastry that’s a chewy chocolate pastry with a chewy custard interior. It’s shaped like a little Bundt cake. She enjoyed it. They also sell canneles at Trader Joes in the frozen section.
Eating at Bottega Louie was quite a culinary experience. After leaving we walked to New Zealand Natural where I had the lime sorbet and my wife had the Hokey Pokey ice cream.
We walked to the restaurant, mostly north up Grand Avenue from our sister- and brother-in-law’s loft in South Park. We passed the Stillwell Hotel with the Indian Restaurant Gill’s and a new diner called Mother Road. There was a stand for valet parking right near the corner of Seventh and Grand. The restaurant entrance is right there on the ground floor and most of its walls are glass windows looking out onto the street. We actually entered into the section that’s the gourmet market. There’s a counter with freshly baked items behind a the glass such as many colorful macaroons and some cannele pastries that my wife later tried. Shelves against the floor contained house brand and gourmet brand pastas, pasta sauces, jams and preserves, and other non-perishables. The place was crowded, probably due to Mother’s Day, but when we gave our name to the hostess at the desk in the middle of the restaurant she said the wait was only five minutes. We looked around in the market and they came and got us very soon.
To get to our table we passed a large open kitchen, some elegant glassware stacked on trays, and a separate kitchen station where they made the pizzas. There are many tables in the eastern half of the restaurant. It has high ceilings and slightly dark lighting, white tables, chairs, ceilings, pillars, and walls (at least those walls that aren’t windows). The floors are shiny gray stone and some counters and walls have elegant dark wood paneling with gold-colored trim. They put the six of us at a long combination of 2-3 tables near the northeast corner. Along the window near us were some shiny silver-colored Champagne buckets on stands. The table cloth was white to match the rest of the color scheme.
They brought us menus. Most of their choices are Italian but there’s such a wide variety. They have salads, pizzas, pastas, soups (including a pasta fagiole similar to a recipe we made recently only that was made with Italian sausage and Bottega Louie made theirs with prosciutto), entrees, over 30 small plates ranging in price from $6-$8, poultry, meat, and fish. The prices were fairly reasonable such as $12 for the meat and seafood pastas, $6 for soups, $12 for sandwiches, $14 for entrees, $23 for fish, and $33 for steak. After seeing the Fettuccine Belmondo under pastas my brother-in-law mentioned that Belmondo was also the name of a famous actor in Europe.
For drinks, our sister- and brother-in-law brought a bottle of wine that the wait staff poured without charging a corkage fee. The servers also brought us drinking water in elegant clear glass bottles with long necks. The water came flat or sparkling. Mom mentioned that in the Philippines they call this kind of sparkling water “soda” and what we call sodas they call soft drinks. I should also mention that the salt shakers on our table contained pink colored salt. The servers brought us small loaves of sliced crusty bread wrapped in white paper. It wasn’t exactly French or Italian bread and reminded me of Ecuadorean bread.
After some deliberation we placed our orders. First, they brought out an elevated rack for pizza and served that first: the clam pizza that also had roasted yellow and red pepper, mozzarella, and pecorino Romano cheese. The peppers made it a very colorful pizza and my wife said it was very good, especially with the clams cooked just right. Next they brought our entrees. My sister- and brother-in-law had wanted to order the Arrancini Arrabbiata but the waiter said they were out of that so they ordered the Fettuccine Belmondo instead. I enjoyed my three Kurobuta pork chops. The many grill marks corresponded to excellent smoky grilled flavor. They were fully cooked, juicy and not chewy at all. Even better was the house-made applesauce that came with the pork chops in its own metal serving boat. The applesauce tasted freshly made with little chunks of apple and no added sweetener. It didn’t need any and went well with the chops. In all it was a lot of food, but very good.
As a table we got a wide variety of food. My wife ordered the Trenne pasta that she said was pretty good but she felt the rib eye in it taste more like stew meat than rib eye. My mother- and father-in-law ordered the mussels and clams steamed in white wine broth. They shared some with us and they were good. We also enjoyed some of the Portobello fries that my sister-in-law ordered. For drink, my wife enjoyed her blueberry lemonade that had a purple color and contained many large blueberries.
They brought out a dessert menu that listed some interesting choices such as Bulgarini Sorbet and Peanut Butter terrine. There were also cheese and dessert wines. We didn’t have dessert because we planned to get ice cream from New Zealand Natural at L.A. Live. On the way out we shopped at the gourmet market. We got some Bottega Louie-brand ragu sauce that came in a large jar and a jar of Bonne ____________, strawberry preserves from France. The cashier said the preserves were very good. We tried it later and found it was sweet enough to be a dessert or a fruit spread. Dad brought my wife a cannele pastry that’s a chewy chocolate pastry with a chewy custard interior. It’s shaped like a little Bundt cake. She enjoyed it. They also sell canneles at Trader Joes in the frozen section.
Eating at Bottega Louie was quite a culinary experience. After leaving we walked to New Zealand Natural where I had the lime sorbet and my wife had the Hokey Pokey ice cream.
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