Steve and I just came back from dinner at Vitello's with Vik and Fred. Vitello's is this old-school Italian resturant near our house that gained notoriety as the resturant where Robert Blake shot his wife. At the time, the media was up in arms about why Blake parked 2 blocks away on a rainy night when Vitello's has a parking lot, but the truth is that the lot is always full, and you are lucky to get a spot anywhere close. So take that, CNN. Once inside, it's actually quite big, and we have never waited more than five minutes for a table.
(I digress, but this is reason #56 why NO ONE should ever bother eating at the Cheescake Factory. Why do people wait so long for a table at a resturant that you need a beeper to find out when your table is called? To have cheesecake for dessert? I can see if you live in some backwash burg, but we live in LA for chrissakes. There are 3000 great resturants, and as long as you don't want to eat after 10pm, you can pretty much have pick of them all. Why not try Vitello's in Studio City...)
Vitello's is the kind of joint where the owner wanders around flirting with the ladies, cracking jokes with the gentlemen and making sure you are enjoying your meal. If you need a little something he just snaps his fingers and bus boys jump to attention. Tonight, we actually heard him call, "hey, kid!" and not one, but two boys stumbled over each other to get to the table to wrap up Vik's chicken parmesean. This was after Mr. Restivo had spent five minutes telling her she should finish her dinner. On a previous visit with Steve's family, Finn wowed him with the information, "I like Garbanzo Beans!"
One of the highlights of the place is its location. Nestled in the Studio City section of The Valley, it is one of those businesses that has 100 framed headshots of celebrities in the front entrance way. Like the Taco Bell across from Warner Brothers on Olive. The one that specializes in kid headshots (who the hell else is willingly eating that grub during daylight hours) and has two limo parking spaces. Even the shoemaker where I picked up my newly resoled shoes today has the requisite headshots. They were so downmarket, that I actually had the brief thought of giving him one of mine, but that flicker faded when I realized that the only two good ones (Steven Seagal, and Jay Leno 1983) were on the opposite wall. Still, it might be funny. Anyway, Vitello's doesn't have to separate the stars from the wannabe's like Sous' Shoes. Every headshot is a star. And you can trace the arcs of their careers. Tom Hanks goes from Bosom Buddies to Forrest Gump. Tonight, the pix that jumped at me were Burt Reynolds circa Cannonball Run and Uncle Jessie. Uncle Jessie's was in color, BTW, thus proving that everything goes in cycles. Color headshots are the new black!
The best thing about Vitello's (besides the AMAZING veal dishes--stop being PC for just one evening, will ya, and have the veal) is the celebrity sightings. Forget sitcom sidekicks and lead singers of 80's hair bands, tonight was the best one yet. Larry King and his lovely 7th wife were seated right near us. I know he just hosted that debate at USC, and the Oscar's are tomorrow. He came all the way to The Valley for dinner! That's like taking a dogsled to LA's Siberia. As we left, his driver was idling in the town car right out front. If #7 turns up with a bullet in her tomorrow we can be witnesses. Nothing was amiss that we could see; they seemed to be getting along just fine.
We'll be back again soon, murder or not.
Love, Robyn
