Osteria Bigoli opened in Santa Monica at 714 Montana about a year ago. In case you are wondering about its name, bigoli is a Venetian pasta made with a thick tube with a history going back to the 1600s, and the reference to the pasta in its name is emblematic of the restaurant’s self described signature style: old world food with a new flare.
The restaurant might be new, but its executive chef Claudio Marchesan has been in the the restaurant business for over 40 years. His career includes being Executive Chef at Prego and Il Fornaio restaurants, and he also has the huge inherent advantage of growing up in Grado in the north-eastern region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. He makes his own pastas, bragging “I have the pasta machine, and I have a special recipe with flour and salt…can’t let the secret out.” His specialty is Venetian pastas which are like thick spaghetti that do a great job of holding the sauce.
The restaurant’s appetizers range from basic burrata, salumeria and cheese board to popular fried calamari and shrimp, grilled artichoke and octopus, to traditional fare like veal and pork meatballs, and stews like braised honeycomb tripe in tomato sauce with cannellini beans and mussels and clams in a savory tomato broth.
The soup and salad section includes a soup of the day, caesar and spinach salads, along with an arugula salad with roasted beets, goat cheese and candied walnuts.
A variety of pastas includes the namesake bigoli with tomato and roasted garlic sauce; spinach lasagna with Bolognese sauce; squid ink pasta with manila clams, tomatoes and garlic; thin pasta squares with Genovese almond-basil pesto; tortellini filled with ricotta and parmesan in pink tomato sauce; pastas filled with roasted meats; braised short ribs with pappardelle slow baked in red wine, mushrooms and tomatoes; rigatoni cooked with white wine and romano; ribbon pasta with Bologna style meat sauce; and risotto with shellfish in a light tomato sauce.
Specialty dishes include veal medallions with prosciutto; veal and chicken parmigianas in tomato sauce; grilled lamb chops; a grass fed Angus flat iron steak with Tuscan beans; a grilled veal loin chop; and a fish of the day.
Desserts are made in-house and include traditional Italian favorites tiramisu, buttermilk panna cotta, bread pudding with Chantilly sauce, and cannoli.
The night we visited, the restaurant was fairly full even though it was a Wednesday evening. Despite being in demand and kept busy, our server Oswaldo was attentive and very knowledgeable about the restaurant operations.
The restaurant’s traditional design gives warm and cozy feel which works well for its role as a neighborhood restaurant in an affluent section of Santa Monica. But that is not the only advantage of the restaurant’s location: it also happens to be on a popular destination strip of Montana, as well as being conveniently just off of Lincoln Blvd. That should keep the restaurant in business for a while.