Trattoria Farfalla Finally Reopens Its Doors

The first time I went to fetch a meal from Trattoria Farfalla, we ended up eating El Pollo Loco. Farfalla was closed for remodeling and I hadn’t called ahead. My friends, who’d been counting on grilled eggplant and focaccia , were great sports about eating coleslaw, tortillas and thighs.

The next time, I called several hours in advance. “Could you call back a little later?” the voice on the line said. “You can phone 15 minutes before you want to pick up.”

“You’re really open?” I said. We sounded like Nichols and May.

Yes, Trattoria Farfalla in Los Feliz is open again, larger, noisier, about a dollar more expensive per dish, and full of all things fluffy, crunchy, fresh and ripe. While Farfalla delivers, the pleasure of picking up your order consists of opening the door to one great garlic blast.

“So you’re coming with El Pollo Loco again, right?” my friend said.

Ha. (Don’t get me wrong: I like El Pollo Loco.) I arrived with a kind of hall-of-science museum display: bruschetta , focaccia rosmarino , pizza rustica and pizza pomodori secchi e pollo , all based on the same thin, crisp, blistered discs of dough. Five minutes away from the restaurant and all four dishes were cool. (I can tell you they were hot when I carried them into my car because I immediately ripped into the completely wonderful rosemary-and garlic-topped just-made focaccia. )

If the sign of a good pizza is that it can be eaten cold, then this place is on base. I like Farfalla’s pizzas, even cold, a lot--they get down to the bones of the dish. (Prices range from $7.50 for a 9-inch rustica to $13 for a 15-inch one topped with sausage, rugola salad and Parmesan cheese.) The rustica comes elegantly coated with a thin glaze of good olive oil, perky fresh tomatoes, fresh basil and garlic, that’s all. The sun-dried tomato and chicken version is also spare, with the sheerest slip of cheese and scarcely any poultry. The bruschetta differs from the Florentine version in which the tomatoes are cooked; Farfalla’s arrives with the ripest, sweetest, raw tomatoes--as good as the just-picked organic ones I find at my local farmer’s market.

If you’re in the mood for the kind of great midnight snack you’d whip up yourself, try the farfalle alla vodka ($9.50), bow ties with rich, fragrant ham, gently smoked salmon and a light cream sauce. But only order this if you’re in that refrigerator-raid sort of mood because this dish doesn’t travel well. The Parmesan cheese absolutely congeals : You find yourself eating gluey texture along with the lovely taste.

But besides the artichoke alla giudea --which is not at all the traditional flattened, flash-fried version of the dish, but more a soggy stuffed crew cut of an artichoke--and an overly salty pasta e fagioli , I look forward to eating nearly everything else again.

An appetizer of wafer-thin eggplant, tasting, well, injected with garlic and balsamic vinegar, arrives with sweet silky peppers, delicate creamy goat cheese and vibrant green olives. It’s $6.50 and would easily serve two. I am very cranky when it comes to the subject of seafood salad because it is one of my very favorite dishes: Farfalla’s version gets an 8 out of 10. The portion is generous, the shrimp are as sweet as they get, the lemon-squirted olive oil is nice and the whole dish is worth $7.50. I subtract two points because the squid and octopus were rubbery. And why use that much celery?

The Farfalla salad--chopped romaine, radicchio and freshly grated Parmesan--is served over a garlicky wad of the restaurant’s hallmark pizza bread dough. It would make a good, light meal in itself. The plain mixed greens are fine too, but I think the dressings should be put on the side. You know how fast lettuce wilts.

Lasagnette , slimmed-down lasagna noodles, is anything but skinny: this dish is decked out with ultra-creamy ricotta, fluffy pesto and a big fat handful of toasted pine nuts. Tagliolini ($9) is delicate with garlic, loaded with sweet butterflied shrimp and burnished with that good olive oil Farfalla consistently uses.

There is a tiny selection of secondi . But the restaurant had run out of the veal dishes (two of the five entrees) when I called. No hardship: the halved roast chicken ($11) with its crusty coat of herbs, strong on the rosemary, is moist and delicious and comes with a sheaf of robust, garlicky vegetables. The peppery fennel sausage served with creamy polenta and a light pale orange tomato sauce ($9.50) is wonderful, too.

The apple tart is densely dark with that full-bodied sweetness of just-made applesauce and the tirami su is not too sweet. You can’t find them at El Pollo Loco. My friends had to rub it in.

Trattoria Farfalla, 1978 Hillhurst, Los Angeles. (213) 661-7365. Lunch Monday-Friday 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Monday-Friday 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m., Saturday-Sunday until 11 p.m. Deliveries available within a 3-mile radius. Minimum delivery order $15. Delivery charge $2. All major credit cards. Valet parking.