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Pasquale Del Mar |
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location > 3790 Via de la Valle, Del Mar
phone > 858-259-0504
chef > Vincenzo Mauri
AFTER INSPIRING GUESTS to dance among the tables at Pasquale on Prospect (the fun, smallish restaurant sandwiched between George’s at the Cove and Azul La Jolla), restaurateur Pasquale Angelotti provides them plenty of room to party at his new Pasquale Del Mar.
For two decades, this second-floor space in a Via de la Valle complex across from the polo fields housed Scalini, an Italian restaurant that claimed many fans but apparently ran its course. Angelotti and a couple of partners——one, Kentucky-born former San Diego Padre Steve Finley, lent his name to the restaurant’s sizzling-hot Finley Lounge——lavished considerable time and money remaking the space, which reopened midsummer with a solid menu of pastas and Italian entrées.
Looks count. A full page of the menu actually credits those responsible for the glam decor, such as NWW of Vienna, Austria, which supplied the leather chairs and banquettes upholstered in a lustrous mother-of-pearl shade. The semicircular booths in the large central room snake across the space in luxe curves, beneath drumshape hanging lamps made of cascading beads.
Lavender draperies somewhat shield pretty side rooms from the action in the main room and lounge, but all areas look across the open dining terrace to the polo grounds, often alive at this time of year with multitudes of soccer teams. The place is gorgeous.
Executive chef Vincenzo Mauri super vises a menu that sometimes defies local Italian conventions—— one appetizer, for example, marries snails in lemony wine sauce to silky artichoke hearts ($12) —— but takes care to list spaghetti and meatballs ($19), as well as exceptionally good house-made pappardelle pasta bathed in a Kobe beef sauce Bolognese ($24). There are fewer pasta selections than at most luxury Italian houses, but they tend to be notable, like the bucatini carbonara ($18). Lightly dressed with egg and Pecorino cheese, this pasta with a wonderfully toothsome bite is distinguished by crisp morsels of meaty pancetta bacon that provide a salty, marvelous flavor.
You can’t put soup and pasta in the same meal (it’s not illegal, just not done), but you can put pasta in soup, which Mauri does quite successfully with his pasta e fasull ($8), more typically spelled fagiole. It’s a terrific blend of deeply flavored beans tempered with firmly textured pasta tubes.
You certainly can put butter-tender ossobuco and slightly chewy, saffron-scented risotto on the same plate ($32), which Pasquale Del Mar does to happy effect. Grilled filet mignon topped with Gorgonzola cheese is a familiar, pleasing self-indulgence ($43). For a more daring foray into the unknown, try the coda——oxtail stewed with raisins and pine nuts in a cocoa-scented marinara sauce ($34). The cocoa marks it as old-style Sicilian, and it’s succulent and memorable.
Pasqaule Del Mar serves lunch weekdays and dinner nightly at 3790 Via de la Valle in Del Mar. Make reservations at 858- 259-0504.
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Reader Comments:
I am 100% italian and did not enjoy the italian food at Pasquale's at all, neither did my 4 guests. The sauce was mediocre, and meatballs o.k. The prices are way over priced, I presume they want their guests to pay for their overhead, cause the food was not worth it at all!!!! We will never retrun nor will our friends in Del Mar.
We thought that Pasquales would be a terriffic new restaurant. We found the food truly terrible. My pasta was mush. The Osso Bucco had so much spice it was bitter and tasteless. Our other diners left most of their dinners. The mashed potatos were watery. We'll never go back
The food at Pasquale in Del Mar was outstanding(try the lasagna)!-this is coming from a native New Yorker. North County San Diego needed some authentic Italian food and this is it. Waitstaff was courteous and attentive.
We have gone to all Pasquale's restaurants and this one is a winner totally different feel than the others. Like the waiters best at La Jolla restaurant. Too serious in Del Mar. Listen to the New Yorker west coast people don't know good food.
---Listen to the New Yorker west coast people don't know good food.--
Funny how you can pass judgement on the west coast when quite a few of us "West Coast" people migrated from the East Coast! You'd think some of them could bring their cooking habits with them, but no!
East Coast people are snobs.
We just moved here and someone told me to go to Il Fonoio in Del Mar it was poison, Rosemary,bay leaves not where they should be, typing about it is making me ill.Stumbled on to Pasquale,s the osso buco is BETTER than in Italy.Can't believe the bad comments . Went just once however.
There are restaurants in west coast that would never make it in New York, those with flowers on your plate, tomatoes shaped like roses,Pasquale does none of those things so if your looking for that it's not a place for you.Hate L.A restaurants just so phony in an effort to validate cuisine with all garbage techniques.San Diego unfortunately is heading in the same direction.
This place is Heaven I've never seen more beautiful people in my life !Only intimidated in parking lot. Rolls , Ferraris, everywhere
The place is an enigma the cooking is so homestyle and the decor is conflicting. Unbelievable contempory beautiful leather and wood . Crystal lik e I've never seen in my life.In one night I seen Juior Seau ,Marshall Faulk , Burt Bacharach , and Cliff from Cheers. All in the same night.An enigma !!!
We like to dine at the bar and last night was our 2nd trip to Pasquale's Del Mar. We were there early, not crowded. We were barely greeted upon walking in by the hostess who looked bored and cold. The "bar manager" was bartending and his greeting wasn't much friendlier. There's not a decent glass of red wine under $15 so I went white. All's fine but once the guy takes our food order he never even glanced our way for the rest of the evening. My glass sat empty for 30 min's and by the time the 2nd bartender finally asked, I was almost done eating. The salad and entree came at the same time, so if you want your salad first you need to tell them. I sent the pizza back to stay hot and then had to ask the 2nd bartender to hunt it down. Salads are good here, pizza is mediocre. The decor is touted as contemporary and chic...we find is stark, cold, no color, and not even any attempt to hide all the ceiling vents. The dining areas are warmer, but the bar area is stiff and impractical, esp. if sitting at a banquette and trying to eat from the low cocktail tables. In this economy, there is NO excuse for poor service. We won't return.