Stella is West Hollywood's new ritzy destination.
Stella, the West Hollywood hot spot that chef Rob Gentile and restaurateur Janet Zuccarini opened at the former Madeo space in late February, is a grand, ambitious, over-the-top undertaking. It’s an Italian restaurant that’s purposefully unlike any other Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. Gentile is serving hyper-specific regional pastas. He’s hewing to tradition and channeling childhood memories. But he’s also here to discover new ingredients and come up with new crowd-pleasing bangers.
“We always look for something that's going to make a wow impression on someone who's maybe never had it,” says Gentile, who’s cooking ingredients like chayote squash vines and Ibérico pork pluma for the first time.
Gentile is also making crudo with dry-aged fish like black cod from The Joint. He’s dolloping Astrea caviar atop burrata Pugliese.
Guests who used to come to this address for Madeo’s eggplant Parm, spaghetti and salmon might be a little confused by the expansive menu at Stella. (But counting the vintage designer handbags in Stella’s packed two-level space will quickly make you realize the old money is still in the building.) They’ll probably also be delighted once they dig into some of Gentile’s favorites.
Pomodoro takes chef Rob Gentile back to his childhood.
Gentile and chef de cucina Sarah Fiore are putting in serious work to optimize the textures and flavors of dishes like hand-cut maccheroncini di Campofilone, a noodle that’s served with a choice of pomodoro or ragu Marchigiano (a tomato-forward meat sauce that’s lighter than Bolognese).
“Growing up, tomato sauce was one of those things that was just ceremonial,” Gentile says as he recalls his childhood in Toronto. “We all made it together as a family, all the Italians in the backyard. We’d have a big pot, and the tomatoes would get blanched, and they’d go through the machine, and then they would go into glass jars, and the glass jars would get boiled. It was coveted. That’s what we made pasta with. When you eat a tomato sauce that’s made from fresh tomatoes, it’s just a different flavor. It’s a different experience.”
This is the experience Gentile is going for at Stella when he takes fresh farmers-market tomatoes and turns them into his pomodoro sauce.
For his ragu Marchigiano, he uses veal, chicken, pork and bone broth in a sauce that doesn’t have red wine or milk. The ragu Marchigiano is also very much about showcasing the brightness, sweetness, savoriness and umami of fresh tomatoes.
When he ran Buca in Toronto, Gentile figured out how to bring in su filindeu, an ultra-rare pasta from Sardinia. After a decade serving this pasta, which involves pulling dough until the result is 256 extremely thin strands, Gentile was allowed to learn how to make it from su filindeu expert Paola Abraini.
“It’s like a symphony,” Gentile says. “It’s one of those things where you’re just like, ‘How does she do that?’ Paola can make an entire disc in 20 minutes and make it perfectly. It’s a three-layer disc. We have them hanging on the wall. It takes me an hour, and it’s not perfect.”
Each disc is about a kilo of dried pasta, which is good for 25 portions. In Sardinia, su filindeu is served in mutton broth. But Gentile understands that he should change things up in Los Angeles.
“We make the broth a little bit different because the lamb and the mutton here are much more intense in flavor,” Gentile says. “So I use chicken, I use veal, and then we braise lamb and take a portion of the lamb neck broth and incorporate it into the broth that we make.”
Stella adds to LA's Italian-food repertoire.
For Gentile, “Italian cuisine is also about what’s the best, what’s the highest quality. Italians can get very specific in the ingredients that they’re using and why they’re using it. I’ve always appreciated that. I’ve always taken that approach.”
Gentile used to grow cucuzza, a Sicilian squash, on a trellis in his backyard. When he saw chayote in Los Angeles, he was stunned by the similarities. So now he’s getting local squash vines by the case and sautéing the greens with chili, garlic and a little vinegar.
When he and Fiore were R&Ding a pork dish, they tried maybe 15 cuts before they chose the beautifully fatty Ibérico pluma from Spain. This luscious pork, which is rubbed with porchetta spices and brushed with a lacquer that includes saba (grape must) and local fish sauce, has become one of Stella’s most beloved main courses.
For dessert, pastry chef Domenic Giammarella is making show-stopping versions of Italian classics, like a perfect sfogliatella filled with China-China chantilly. Stella’s cassata Siciliana, a pistachio-laden cake, comes on a pedestal. But maybe the biggest statement being made with this dessert is the pistachios that Stella has chosen.
Gentile obviously knows that Bronte pistachios from Sicily are considered the standard-bearer. But he’s buying California pistachios from Arnett Farms.
“To get a fresh pistachio locally is one of the most special things ever,” he says. “Everyone is like, ‘Bronte, Bronte, Bronte.’ Sure, they’re great. But if I was in Bronte, they’re going to be a hundred times better because you get them fresh.”
Gentile knows that, in LA, the fresh Arnett pistachios are better than any pistachios shipped from Italy. You could argue that using the California pistachios is more Italian than using Italian pistachios. Italian cuisine is built around cooking with the best of what’s around you, about giving local flavors the spotlight.
So, yeah, the tomatoes in Stella’s ragu Marchigiano are from California. But that terrific sauce is deeply, resolutely Italian.
