Figgy Bliss at Il Fico

Sometimes enjoying food is all about the ambience and one of my favorite kinds of experiences in this realm happens when the following ingredients are included: a warm and sunny afternoon, an urban center, a casual non-rushed sense of time, white wine day drinking, outdoor seating, people watching, and good Italian food.

This past Saturday I found this piece of experiential bliss in West Hollywood at Il Fico where we stopped on our search to fill our mutual craving for a piece of pizza pie to carb up before gallery hopping in the area.

Seated outside amongst the simple modern décor and catered to by three eager waiters through the course of our meal, we ended up eating much more than we came for amidst the bustling sidewalk street traffic, honking traffic-frenzied drivers on the Robertson strip and other dining couples who seemed liked regulars in their snappy ordering of multiple items and blasé attitudes while perpetually playing with smart phones and shopping bags. 

A gorgeous and simple Il Campana pie with flat crust, fluffy lumps of burrata, strips of basil and roasted cherry tomatoes that popped in the mouth. Prettier than any of the lame art we ended up seeing in West Hollywood (save for the Daniel Richter paintings at Regen Projects which were great, garish displays of American war psyche and man's place in the world and the PST show at Tasende which had some interesting Latin American surrealistic Mattas but slim picking otherwise). Crust could have had a little more olive oil and salt and for $18 bucks this pizza is not something I could easily afford often which is a shame because if it were a bit less in price I would come here often. 

Beautiful little jar of chili oil with tiny spoon for drizzling over the pie to make it spicy. I am going to make a jar of this to keep at home, inspired by this nice little touch.

Even though our goal was to eat pizza, we ended up ordering the Macaroni with Duck Ragu. "Duck" and "ragu" are two things that I can't often resist and this one was really yummy, with the duck nuggets coming in tiny, meaty chunk, the al dente macaroni a perfect vehicle for the comforting sauce, and bits of chewy porcini and slivers of grated pecorini to add oomph. We didn't get charged a fee to split the dish and both received nice portions in individual bowls. 

I hardly ever order dessert, and especially at lunchtime. But at a restaurant named after one of my favorite fruits, and with a dessert that was listed as being made up of ricotta cheese as a main ingredient, I had to try the Millefoglie di Fichi. Decadent yes, worth it, yes. Picking out bits of crispy chocolate covered pieces of pastry from the pile of sweet cheese with hints of fig was a whole lot of fun with the fingers and the perfect end to the first half of Saturday.