Odys + Penelope Porchetta [CLOSED]

Pork Los Angeles

The Hatfields enlighten rich porchetta with green tomato mostarda.

Porchetta has luckily become popular in L.A. over the past few years. The dish typically features slabs of pork belly and loin meat that are rolled around spices before they’re roasted and sliced. At Odys + Penelope, the sleek new Los Angeles restaurant from Quinn Hatfield and wife Karen Hatfield, the chef duo draws on diverse culinary influences. Thankfully, they’ve found a place for porchetta in their seasonal, market-driven rotation.

Quinn Hatfield presides over an open kitchen with three grills, which each burn different wood. He’s got an Uruguyan brasero that feeds on almond wood, a Santa Maria style grill with a wheel crank and V slats that swallows red oak, and a Brazilian churrasco that cooks mesquite charcoal. It’s on that churrasco that he prepares their Heritage Churrasco Porchetta ($22)

Hatfield starts by trimming the belly and rolling the meat around a spice blend that includes garlic, lemon juice and rind, fresh rosemary, fennel seed, chili flake, salt and pepper. The porchetta roasts open an open fire for about 90 minutes, until the meat’s cooked through and forms a sear on an outer layer of fat. This porchetta may not have the crispy coat that you’ll find on classic porchettas, but you will experience thin, juicy slices with fatty, caramelized edges. A fan pattern of “the other white meat” hosts tangy, chunky green tomato mostarda. The pork belly’s bed stars earthy Beluga lentils that are tossed with an enlightening mince of Persian cucumber, red onion, pickled cauliflower and Italian parsley.

Dose of Vitamin P spotlights my favorite pork dish from the previous week.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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