Mozza is a Los Angeles-based collaboration between Mario Batale, his business partner Joe Bastianich, and Nancy Silverton of Campanile/La Brea Bakery fame. Bob and I lunched there a few days ago, ordering an exquisite salad of raddichio, arugula and frisee tossed in a rich anchovy dressing, two pizzas, and a bowl of brussels sprouts. Everything was quite excellent, including Bob's view of pretty Claire Danes two tables away, but two things about this meal stood out. WAY out.
One was a pizza. Not the margherita with prosuitto which was entirely delicious, as the crust and tomato sauce here are spectacular, but this was in fact fairly pedestrian considering the other more unusual options on the menu, and it did not set itself apart from the pack of other margheritas I've had in my eating career but for the crust and the tomato sauce (fairly identical to Mario's tomato sauce at his New York pizzeria, Otto, if you're familiar.) I should have ordered the one with Nancy's housemade fennel sausage or the one with squash blossoms and burrata. Sometimes it's stupid to play it safe.
But Mozza hit the ball out of the park with our other choice, the "benno", an upscale take on the pizza commonly known in less scrupulous establishments as "the Hawaiian" that is usually a combination of canned pineapple and cheap lunchmeat ham. It's a combination I have flatly, resolutely, refused to ever even taste. Just by description, it's an abomination. So why did I order it here of all places, why did I forsake all manner of good things for that hideous combination? Well, something about the atmosphere convinced me that anything was poss...no, I lie. It was our cute little bartender, he talked me into believing that the more I disliked the concept, the more impressed I'd be with the Mozza version.
So I bit. The first layer was a white sauce onto which was placed paper thin slices of fresh jalapeno pepper and finely chopped cilantro, which was then topped with very thin deep yellow slices of chewy, half-dehydrated fresh pineapple and baked. Once out of the oven, it was topped with ripples of sliced, fresh cold ham that looked like they were cut from a leg of proscuitto that hadn't yet been air dried and then drizzled with a peppery olive oil. Oh. My. God. This was food I didn't understand was possible.
And in the same class was the bowl of brussels sprouts we ordered from the antipasti menu and enjoyed after our salad while the pizzas baked. Described as "Brussels Sprouts with Proscuitto Bread Crumbs", the sprouts had been marinated in a herbal red wine vinegar and olive oil dressing. Served room temperature, they must have been blanched or even par cooked beforehand for they remained colorfully green even when saturated with red wine vinegar flavor. The sprouts were then tossed with a copious quantity of very crispy bread crumbs which had a complex, ethereal spice flavor I couldn't quite put my finger on, almost cinnamon-like but it was more than that. I presume the 'proscuitto' in the title gave its rendered fat to the bread crumbs--there was no meat in sight. Which was entirely okay, meat would have been superfluous--these were the best brussels sprouts I've ever eaten. I won't be able to duplicate this amazing dish exactly, but I will be a better woman for trying. Every restuarant has a couple not-to-be-missed dishes, things you've never had and will never have anywhere else: this surely is one of Mozza's.
