Vintage Enoteca

7554 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 512-5278
www.vintageenoteca.com

Parking: Free Parking Lot behind the restaurant (crazy, right?!)
Days: Monday-Friday
Times: 5-7pm
Drink Deals: None :(
Food Deals: ½ off all food except for meat and cheese plates and dessert.

I’ve kinda got a conundrum writing this review for Vintage Enoteca because honestly – I love what they’re trying to do, but at the same time definitely see some room for growth and improvement.

Here’s the good – It’s a cute/cool little artisanal eatery with good wines and breakfast/lunch/dinner smack-dab near HHT Headquarters – that’s pretty neat. Add to that a cute patio and cool inside seating – all good. Plus, the Happy Hour food deals are great – ½ off all food items except for cheese and meat plates and desserts. That means $2.50 appetizers, $3 brushcetta, and $5 dinner-sized sandwiches, flatbread pizzas, pastas, and dinner salads. On top of that, the staff is super-super nice and helpful. And there actually seemed to be a good crowd while we were there from 5:30-8pm. So many Happy Hours have great deals, but lack drawing people in – glad to see that so many people came to take advantage of the good food prices!

Clockwise from top: $6 Glasses of Sangria, $2.50 Olives, $3 Anchovy & Tomato Bruschetta, $2.50 Spiced Almonds

The not-so-good – there are no drink deals during Happy Hour, and the regularly priced wines run from $8-14/glass ($32-90/bottle) while the beers go from $5-10. Our cool waitress did mention a Sangria special the night we visited - $6/glass (which didn’t seem that full). Unfortunately, she didn’t mention the $20 Sangria pitcher, which we found out about from the table next to us – it would have been a better deal for our party of 5.

Anyway… I kinda get the lack of Happy Hour drink deals since the HH food prices deals are so great, but I think it couldn’t hurt to add a $5 glass of wine to the menu between 5-7pm. Maybe they could even get a wine sponsor for Happy Hour, seems like a wine company might be interested in the opportunity to promote themselves as a Happy Hour wine of choice. My last problemo was the fact that our food orders (2 sandwiches and 2 flatbreads) came out a good 3 minutes apart from each other so that the time my friend, Nic, got her Braised Leek Flatbread, I had pretty much already devoured my Tuna Panini sandwich.

Which brings me back to the good – the food selections were really fun and different. For appetizers we ordered the Marinated Olives and Marcona Almonds (with smoked paprika) for $2.50 each and Nic got the Tomato Bruschetta (w/ Manchego cheese and Anchovy) for $3. Other bruschetta items included:

• White Bean Hummus
• Chicken Liver Pate
• Goat’s Cheese (w/ carmelized onion and crispy prosciutto)
• Blue Crab (w/ mint & lemon), and
• White Asparagus (w/ goat cheese and onion jam!)

Party of 5

For dinner – pals Booze and Kitty Packard and a new work/apartment pal (really, she works in my building and just moved into my apt. building) joined us and between the 5 of us, for only $20 – we had the:

• Margherita Flatbread (w/ burrata, tomato, and basil)
• Braised Leek Flatbread (w/ ricotta and pancetta)
• Spicy Tuna Panini (w/ provolone, butterleaf, red onion, hard-boiled egg, and calabrese chili) and
• Air-Dried Beef (pecorini fresco, arugula, tomato confit, black pepper aioli) Panini.

Top: $5 Spicy Tuna Panini Bottom: $5 Braised Leek Flatbread, $5 Margherita Flatbread

All-in-all, you, dear reader, can imagine the kinda-conundrum I’m in here. I really want to give Vintage Enoteca a high Happy Hour rating, but I definitely think there’s room for improvement.

--JB

Rating: 2.75-3 Martinis