RESTAURANT REVIEW : An Italian Temple to Garlic (and Sometimes Mushrooms)

On a Tuesday evening, Raffaella Trattoria is quiet and nearly empty.

We’re seated in the nonsmoking section, on the east side of the restaurant at a glass-topped table. There’s one other table of customers, smokers, in the westerly room. Tonight’s staff consists of one cook, one waiter. There’s also an older gentleman sitting alone at a table; it appears that his job is to monitor the action. I can see the chef at work in the kitchen. His name, according to the waiter, is Sal. And Sal is not in a very good mood.

We order three appetizers. Sal goes to work with fierce concentration and very shortly, sauteed fresh spinach, insalata caprese and asparagus vinaigrette come to our table. Clearly, the chef’s bad mood has not spilled over into these dishes. The tomato, basil and bufala mozzarella are fresh-tasting and nicely dressed. And the asparagus and spinach are distinguished--and quite remarkable--for the abundance of whole fresh garlic cloves heaped upon them. The garlic in the spinach is sauteed a lovely, caramelized brown; the garlic on the asparagus is pale, semi-crushed and spicy hot. The vegetables are delicious, the garlic heavenly, the portions generous. We realize then that the restaurant’s resemblance to an Eastern mosque or temple is quite appropriate: Raffaella is a kind of temple to the stinking rose.

As we eat, four more people come in, call out greetings to the staff and sit down in the smoking room. We’re finishing up our appetizers when the kitchen sends out food to the four. The waiter takes out three plates, returns for a fourth, which he takes, looks at and waves at the cook. “Wait a sec,” he says. “Sal, there are no mushrooms or olives in this arrabbiata !”

Sal mutters.

“You’re out of them?” cries the waiter. “You can’t make arrabbiata without olives and mushrooms!”

The customers holler too: “Come on, Sal.”

The rejected arrabbiata goes to the old man sitting alone at the table near us. Sal scowls and makes another dish. He plunks it down where the waiter should pick it up and raps on the counter. “Come on, pick it up, get it out of here right now.”

At Sal’s words, the waiter, who had been making a beeline for the plate of food, suddenly veers off in the opposite direction, slowly and deliberately circumambulates the dining room, and then, ever-so-nonchalantly, retrieves the plate and serves it.

Hey, it’s Tuesday night, slow as mud, and nobody wants to die of boredom.

As wonderful as the appetizers were, the entrees are not. My linguine with clam sauce is actually spaghetti with clam sauce (I guess Sal was out of linguine too). Although there is a generous amount of clams, and another stunning dose of whole-clove garlic, the clams and broth are a little brackish, and I don’t eat much. And while the red sauce in the shrimp fra diavolo is devilishly spicy, the shrimp itself is overcooked and tasteless. “Come on, Sal,” we want to say too.

Still, the memory of those appetizers nags and the very next Friday night, we’re back. This time, there are a lot more diners, a hostess, and, in the tiny kitchen, two more cooks. Our appetizers are again outrageously good and garlicky. Both the sauteed peppers and asparagus parmigiana have a faint, heavenly, smoky flavor.

The food comes out of the kitchen with the same alacrity it did in the nearly empty restaurant the first night and is far better. The arrabbiata , complete with mushrooms and olives, is true to its name--lusciously piquant and “angry.” We also try one of Sal’s daily specials, a veal “Sorentini”: two veal medallions topped with prosciutto and mozzarella, served with penne in a potent Marsala sauce full of mushrooms. The sauce is a bit salty, the veal a bit tough, but not to such an extent that I don’t eat what I can and take the rest home for lunch the following day.

The tirami su is excellent. And the bill seems exceptionally low--we even have the hostess add it up again for fear something had been left off. We begin to feel that we’ve discovered something truly special: a good, inexpensive neighborhood restaurant with a chef who is a genius with garlic.

Raffaella Trattoria, 8222 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 650-9792 . Dinner Tuesday through Sunday. Beer and wine. MasterCard , Visa accepted. Street parking. Dinner for two, food only, $28 - $52.