First meal back

Eric and I were secondshotplustwoweeks as of this past Saturday and I really wanted to go to a restaurant for dine-in for the first time in 13 months. Looking for a small business to support, we ended up at Osteria Mamma in Melrose here in Los Angeles.

They are serving indoors or outdoors, and we chose indoors to get the full “we’re trying to resume normal life” experience. The tables, dispersed with plenty of distance, hugged the walls, decorated with what we assumed were stock Italian nostalgia photos like you see in many such restaurants. We ordered with anticipation, and then we snacked on our slightly sweet, fluffy rosemary focaccia.

The result: it was one of the most delicious meals I’ve had maybe… ever. We had a plate of meats and cheeses (where I had Eric try a salami that he truly disliked but the rest was excellent), an appetizer with crostini, prosciutto, burrata, shaved truffle, and honey that was amazing (pictured above), the pillowiest, fluffiest lasagna I’ve ever tried, and a perfectly al dente spaghetti with lobster (that I also had Eric try the noodles from, prefaced with me saying “it doesn’t taste of seafood, I just want you to try this texture, and the nice saltiness of the pasta” and then 10 seconds later Eric made a horrific face and said “it tastes only of seafood blugh” and I realized the saltiness I was enjoying was the brininess of the lobster and I know I’ve related two instances of Eric recoiling at the food from this place but it was truly a terrific meal).

I’ll cop up front to my prejudice: our waiter was a young blonde woman that I imagined was an aspiring actor with a dayjob and no particular relationship to the restaurant. When Eric complimented her on recommending the lasagna, she said, “That’s one of my favorites, it’s my grandma’s recipe!” We were both surprised.

Turns out, those “stock” photos we saw on the walls were actually photos of her family. Suddenly the experience of the whole place bloomed; we were engaging with a lineage… the waiter’s uncle had immigrated to Los Angeles and wanted to start an establishment. He had asked his mother to come along and provide consult and recipes. They had been in another spot on Melrose and then moved to the current address 11 years ago.

We pictured an adorable nonna on a steamship in the 1960s, traveling, clutching some scrawled cards with ingredient lists and secret gravy codes on them. The legacy, the tradition, the new world, past and present speaking to each other, layering culture and progress one on top of the other like a perfect casserole.

“So when did they come to America and start at the original address?” Eric asked.

“About fifteen years ago!”

“Ah, wow… uh… wow!” Eric said as we both did the math in our head.

That wizened old nonna, making her way to Ellis Island in the dark old times of… 2006. That exhausting… thirteen hours on the flight. Arriving in the US with just $20 on her… debit card.

Still, it’s a delightful place, a local place, a place with humanity to it; the perfect spot to start our re-entry into the outside world, and a wonderful, delicious meal, served by friendly faces (behind masks).

May your first meal back in the wild be as steeped in decades- … um, decade-and-a-half-old history as ours.

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