Vincenti Review - Brentwood - Los Angeles - The Infatuation

"Brentwood is famous for two things: OJ Simpson and having the highest concentration of overpriced, mediocre Italian restaurants in the entire country. OK, fine, it’s really just OJ, but if you’ve ever set foot in this Tesla-filled Westside neighborhood you know you can barely walk two steps down San Vicente without encountering a place serving $30 bowls of spaghetti to people who’ll probably only have one bite. Italian food is Brentwood’s lifeblood and in many ways, it doesn’t really matter if it tastes good or not. But if you’re a person who cares about food, there’s only one Italian restaurant in Brentwood you need to know about: Vincenti. In many ways, Vincenti is just like the other 29 Italian places down the street. The space is big—with a bar up front and a dining room that’s part kind-of-fancy restaurant, part neighborhood meet-up. The crowd is a mix of older couples on date night, groups of parents celebrating the fact that they got babysitters tonight, and younger couples having dinner with in-laws. It’s expensive, the menu comes across as entirely standard (pasta, burrata, giant pieces of meat), and there seems to permanently be some sort of celebrity in residence. So far, so Brentwood. The difference at Vincenti is that the food is truly excellent. Sure there’s fried calamari on the menu, but here it’s relatively light for something that involves so much oil. And anything that comes out of the wood-fired oven is worth paying attention to - they’ll rattle off a list of specials when you arrive that makes picking just one difficult. The simplicity of the food just highlights the quality—you can’t really get away with serving a $58 veal t-bone with not much else unless it’s the best damn veal t-bone around. Given that you can’t really get out the door for under $100 a head, Vincenti isn’t exactly your neighborhood Italian. If you're looking for the Brentwood version of that, head to a few doors down. But if the night calls for a place that feels like a celebration, but also isn’t trying too hard to convince you it’s cool—this is it. And really, if you’re going to eat Italian in Brentwood, you shouldn’t go any further than Vincenti." - Jess Basser Sanders