Refurbished Face and New Tastes

The recently refurbished Madeo Ristorante, 8897 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 859-4903, has a wonderful new menu. You walk into this comfortable, subterranean room to be greeted by a long table with seductive antipasti laid along its entire length. You are instantly hungry. The fine fragrance of the new wood-burning pizza ovens fills the air, and when the light-crusted pizzas arrive they are perched on round wooden boards.

But there is nothing rustic about this room, with its banquettes, its substantial chairs, its careful service. Nor is there anything casual about the large menu, filled as it is with exotic dishes like risotto with porcini, veal-filled ravioli in walnut sauce and spaghetti with lobster sauce. Meat and fish are simply baked on the floor of the oven. Even the desserts look lovely.

This restaurant has gone through a lot in the last few months. It started life as Boboli, became Madeo, had a face lift and now a change of menu. I hope it sticks around in its present incarnation for a while, because I’m looking forward to trying more of the menu.