Osteria Mozza, the flagship restaurant of the Mozza Restaurant Group, had been on my list of restaurants to try ever since I moved to LA a couple of years ago. I just hadn’t gotten around to going until now, because there were always other restaurants that excited me more. I’m always skeptical about Italian food on the West Coast, as I’ve been spoiled by numerous trips to the North End in Boston as well as to some of the best Italian restaurants in New York. But given that Osteria Mozza earned 1 Michelin star in 2009 (in the last guide published for Los Angeles), I thought it was worth a visit.

So how did Osteria Mozza fare? Well, the appetizers and meat course ranged from solid to excellent, but the pastas were lackluster. At a similar price point, the pasta dishes at Ai Fiori and Marea in New York were head and shoulders better than the ones at Osteria Mozza. In fact, I would have preferred to eat my own homemade pasta.

Overall judgment: 3 of 5 stars

The overall meal was fine, but I couldn’t get over the disappointment I felt over the pasta. I can’t give an Italian restaurant too much credit for getting the pasta dishes wrong, so Osteria Mozza is a 3 star in my book. The highlights were the burrata, which was absolutely scrumptious, and the duck, which was pleasantly tender. Most everything else, including the appetizers and the service, were okay but not memorable. The atmosphere left something to be desired though, as the clientele didn’t strike me as sophisticated despite the higher end billing of the restaurant. Case in point: the diners sitting next to us were wearing loud graphic T-shirts and jeans and kept on trying to order fettucine alfredo even though it wasn’t on the menu.

Below is a summary of our meal:

Ricotta cheese. With olive tapenade, basil & crostini. This is the standard amuse-bouche that is offered at Osteria Mozza. I liked the richness of the olive tapenade against the mildness of the ricotta cheese.

Little gem lettuce. With baby squash, red onions, red walnuts & pecorino. I wanted a refreshing salad, and this dish delivered nicely.

Burrata. Speck, pickled ramps, & pane al pomodoro. In case you’re wondering, speck is a type of prosciutto. This was one of the best tasting burrata dishes I have had — the burrata was creamy and melted in my mouth. The addition of the picked ramps added an excellent dimension of flavor to each bite.

Steamed mussels. With passata di pomodoro, chiles, & herbs. This was a fairly standard but tasty mussels dish in a mildly spiced tomato sauce.

Garganelli. With ragu bolognese. This was the dish I was most disappointed in. The garganelli pasta was undercooked, with an unpleasantly hard texture, and didn’t retain much of the flavor from the bolognese. When eaten by itself though, the bolognese sauce was too salty.

Tagliatelle. With oxtail ragu. The tagliatelle was better than the garganelli, but parts of it were stuck together in the sauce. The sauce was saltier than I would have preferred for a ragu.

Duck al mattone. With pear mostarda & sweet corn. The duck meat was wonderfully tender, with the right amount of gaminess to it. The pear mostarda or sweet corn were both excellent sides, but the duck really didn’t require anything else.

Pineapple sorbet. The pineapple sorbet was a sweet and satisfying way to end the meal.

In summary, our appetizers and meat dish at Osteria Mozza were very good. However, the unappetizing pasta dishes, combined with the unrefined atmosphere, weighed down the restaurant’s overall rating for me. I have a hard time believing that this is the best Italian food that LA can offer. Maybe I didn’t order the best pasta dishes (I’ve heard that the ricotta and egg raviolo is one of the restaurant’s specialties), but I expected any pasta dish listed on the menu to be high quality. In comparison, both Bucato and Bestia were more impressive to me the first time around. I would be willing to try Osteria Mozza again, but I would make sure to go with different pasta dishes.

Osteria Mozza, 6602 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038