Dinner Crowd Loves This La Traviata

The story of “La Traviata”: A young woman breaks off with the only man she has ever loved at the instigation of the man’s family. When the broken-hearted man sees her dancing at a party, he yells at her and scornfully throws money in her face. Eventually he finds out that she truly loves him and rushes to her side, but by that point in Verdi’s opera she is, naturally, just working up to her death aria.

The story of the Hermosa Beach restaurant La Traviata: A young man named Carlos Elfego works side by side in an Anaheim restaurant with a 75-year-old Italian chef who’s so grouchy that nobody else wants to be near him. Elfego learns so much that he goes on to cook at Prego, opens La Traviata in 1991 and serves solid Italian food at good prices. People don’t yell at him, but they do happily throw money.

Appetizers include red bell peppers sauteed with fresh basil, garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and topped with anchovies ($6.25) and mozzarella bufala alla caprese ($6.25), slices of Roma tomatoes topped with mozzarella made from water buffalo milk (only the brave milk a water buffalo), fresh basil and olive oil.

The popular linguine pescatore ($10.50) is loaded with littleneck clams, green-lipped mussels, shrimp, scallops and calamari. The chicken-stuffed tri-color ravioli ($9) is made with three different pasta doughs: plain, red (colored with red bell pepper) and green (colored with spinach).

Chicken comes four ways: marsala, piccata , parmigiana and cacciatore ($9.50). The last is sauteed with white wine, mushroom, onions, tomatoes and rosemary. Paella, the Spanish rice dish flavored with saffron and heaped with shrimp, scallops, calamari and chicken, is a frequent special.

La Traviata is at 934 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach. 379-8309. Open Tuesday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.