A Spark in the Hearth

Everything cooked in a wood-fired oven seems to taste better. I remember the charred sweetness of little baby pork chops cooked over an open fire at a country inn in Umbria, and the taste of birds spit-roasted on a windup rotisserie in the room-sized fireplace of a wine estate in Tuscany. Corner rosticcerie in Italy are the most popular sort of take-out. And pizzas cooked on the brick or stone floor of a wood-burning pizza oven win over those cooked in an electric oven almost every time.

From the crowds thronging the new Spark Woodfire Cooking in Studio City, an updated version of an Italian rosticceria, it’s a concept wildly appealing to Angelenos, too. And why not? The Ventura Boulevard restaurant looks sophisticated, and the prices are moderate enough that it can become a weekly fix, not just an occasional indulgence.

The restaurant is the brainchild of Danilo Terribili, co-owner of Alto Palato in West Hollywood, and Bill Chait, a founder of Louise’s Trattoria. It was designed by architect Osvaldo Maiozzi, whose other work includes the sleek Vincenti in Brentwood. The first thing at Spark that catches your eye are the flame-colored awnings out front. Beneath are a handful of outdoor tables, coveted because it’s so much quieter outside than in. At the small bar, lone diners enjoy a pizza or something from the grill. And at the back is an open kitchen, where Luca Sterpetti, a former Alto Palato sous chef, and his team stoke the fires.

Spark’s menu is simple yet enormously appealing: pizzas from the wood-burning oven, rustic soups and fresh salads, oven-baked pastas, rotisserie chicken, herb-and-pepper-crusted pork leg, grilled fish and steaks, plus a slew of vegetable sides. A blackboard scribbled with the wines of the day lists eclectic, interesting wines, such as Martin Codax Albarina from Galicia or the Chardonnay blend “Days of Wine and Roses” from the Austrian producer Aloise Kracher, along with a good selection of moderately priced Italian wines.

My first dinner at Spark in early June was a difficult test, I admit. I’d just arrived from Italy, and headed straight there from the airport. With meals in Italy fresh in my mind, the food came through with flying colors. Fritto misto (mixed fry) of calamari and zucchini fried to a pale, crunchy gold is wonderful, as light as I’ve ever had and delicious with a handmade tartar sauce. I love the thin-crusted Roman-style pizza, too, covered with strips of yellow and red roasted peppers and crumbled sweet Italian sausage embedded in bubbling cheese. A side order of emerald green spinach is beautifully cooked, as are the grilled vegetables, simply cut, brushed with olive oil and grilled over that wood fire. There was a robust ribollita, the Tuscan vegetable and bean soup that has always been a favorite of mine. The kitchen had taken the trouble to find some cavolo nero, the Tuscan “black cabbage” that gives this country soup its particular flavor.

Main course portions are heroic. My order of polpettone (Italian meatloaf) looked big enough to serve all four of us at the table--three thick slices of moist, coarse-ground meatloaf topped with sauteed mushrooms and flanked by grilled vegetables and mashed potatoes mixed with hazelnuts, an addition that only makes them taste heavy. The mixed rotisserie platter for two could easily serve three or four. It includes three kinds of meat--chicken, beef and their version of porchetta, a pork leg redolent of fennel and black pepper. Spiedini, prawns threaded on a skewer with endive and pancetta, is good, too, the sweet prawns nicely set off by the fat of the pancetta and the bitterness of the endive. This meal was better than what you’d get at most Italian restaurants in town.

I went back recently, when you’d think the kitchen would be at the top of its game. But my meal wasn’t nearly as good. And it wasn’t just an off-night, as I discovered on subsequent visits. The cooking seems to be getting further and further from the ideal. Cooking over a wood fire is never easy when all the dishes for a table must be done at the same time. It takes real skill to judge the heat.

It’s easy to over- or undercook. Mostly here, it’s a question of overcooking. On a few occasions, our pizza came out with an underdone crust, and the tomato sauce on top was dried to a paste. The roast chicken doesn’t always have crisp skin, and sometimes the meat is dry. Somehow, too, the roast pork leg never seems to resemble its Italian counterpart.

At $19.95 for an 18-ounce Porterhouse steak, no one is expecting prime aged beef. (The steaks, in fact, are all certified choice Black Angus beef aged for 21 days.) But not even the wood-burning oven has enough magic to give that boneless rib eye some flavor. Served rare and charred, the Porterhouse barely passes muster. And though I wanted to like the lasagna dedicated to the late Mauro Vincenti, who had so much to do with bringing authentic Italian cuisine to Los Angeles, this mound of pasta sheets layered with Bolognese sauce and molten smoked mozzarella is overly rich and heavy.

“I can’t believe two Italian guys came up with a concept like this,” said one of my dinner companions. “My Jewish mother makes better lasagna.” The only other pasta on the menu is also cooked in the wood-burning oven. Cannelloni stuffed with rotisserie chicken and mushrooms may seem like a good way to use the night’s leftover chicken, but it’s awful.

The dessert that’s perfect after all this hearty fare is the chocolate gelato, made at Alto Palato by the restaurant’s resident gelato master, Gino Rindone. None of the other desserts are made at Spark, and aside from the fluffy cheesecake, you can easily skip the rest.

One, if not both, of the owners is there almost every night, so it’s somewhat of a mystery why the food seems to be slipping. The kitchen needs to recapture the fresh, bold cooking it had in the beginning. I just wish the people standing in line now could experience what I tasted in June.

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Spark Woodfire Cooking

CUISINE: Italian rotisserie & grill. AMBIENCE: Attractive, lively cafe with wood-fired oven and rotisserie, small bar and handful of coveted sidewalk tables. BEST DISHES: Sausage and pepper pizza, fritto misto, ribollita soup, Porterhouse steak, rotisserie roasted chicken, grilled vegetables, chocolate gelato. WINE PICKS: 1994 Allegrini “La Grola” Valpolicella, Veneto; 1996 Chateau Reignal “Cuvee Special,” Bordeaux. FACTS: 11801 Ventura Blvd., Studio City; (818) 623-8883. Lunch and dinner daily. Appetizers, $2 to $9; pizzas, $9; main courses, $9 to $20; less at lunch. Corkage $8. Valet parking.