Located a stone’s throw away from the Santa Monica beach, Capo’s building dates back to 1928 and originally housed an automobile club. Through the restoration, owners sought to preserve the authenticity of the original architecture and offer a unique dining experience like no other in the area. Within this red-gabled edifice is a strikingly intimate, yet elegant dining room with high beamed ceilings, flickering candles, and a bright corner fireplace.
Capo fair can be described as modern Italian-style cuisine. Homemade pasta, fresh seafood, and fireplace-grilled meats capture your sense of sight, smell, and taste. Add to that, the ambiance, genuine Italian silverware, knowledgable staff, and the outstanding collection of wines. Capo will forever be a part of your most appealing memories. Capo, a hidden Italian gem in Santa Monica, has been a success since 1998 thanks to the efforts of chef/owner and local restaurateur Bruce Marder. The walls of the cozy restaurant are decorated with art collected on his worldwide travels. This principle even applies to the steak knives one of five sets rotates each week to keep the white tablecloths lively. A chef first and foremost, he is so dedicated that if you don’t happen to see him at Capo one night, he was most likely there that morning prepping with the team. Bread are produced by his own bakery, and he makes many of the cured meats himself. He goes to great lengths to handpick his farm-to-table purveyors a list of them is included with the menu. In a corner of the restaurant is a wood-burning hearth fired with almond wood, which imparts a distinctive flavor to the dishes.
The restaurant has over 2,500 labels and 24,000 bottles collected over decades from all different corners of the world.
Capo has received an acknowledgment with The Wine Spectator Grand Award of Excellence for four consecutive years. The award honors our breadth and depth of world-class wines. Among the appetizers, expect to encounter classic caprese, mini meatballs, Santa Barbara spot prawns, and calamari. Continue with risotto (truly cooked to order for 35 minutes) or the famous rigatoni with truffle meat sauce. This, along with the white corn ravioli with black truffles, can be worth the trip. A few “fish of the day” options are available, but meat is where the wood-fired cooking really shines. Marder is proud of the flourless chocolate soufflé, a recipe given to him by Jacques Pépin. I also liked the candied bread pudding, a variation of crème brûlée. If it might only take you a few minutes to review the menu, it could take all night to peruse the exceptional wine list, which is reason enough for many connoisseurs to come to Capo.
