Felix Trattoria occupies a corner of Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, and the first thing you see on arriving is a glass-walled room at the front of the building where somebody is making pasta by hand. Evan Funke trained at a pasta school in Bologna and built the restaurant around that room — the laboratorio — which is visible from the street and from the dining room. The menu is organised by Italian region rather than by course, which is unusual in Los Angeles and is the single most useful thing to understand before you order.
A pasta list organised by region rather than by shape, and a booking process that is not a website. Ask Karpo how to get a table and what to order when you have one.
Reading a menu organised by region
Most Italian restaurants in America list pasta by what is in the sauce. Felix lists it by where in Italy the shape and the preparation come from, which is a completely different organising logic and rewards a different way of choosing.
The practical effect is that the regions tell you what kind of dish you are ordering. Northern sections lean toward egg pasta, butter, filled shapes and richer sauces; southern sections toward semolina and water, dried shapes, tomato, chilli and olive oil.
For a table of two, ordering one from the north and one from the south gives you the whole argument of the menu in two plates. Ordering two from the same region gives you a narrower and less interesting meal.
If you only have one, the handmade egg pastas from Emilia-Romagna are what Funke trained for and are the most direct expression of what the laboratorio exists to do.
The glass room is not decoration
The laboratorio is a working production room with humidity and temperature control, and the pasta made in it is made daily rather than held. Hand-rolled sheets behave differently from extruded ones — they take sauce differently and they have a texture that machines cannot fake.
It is also, deliberately, a piece of transparency. You can watch the process that the price of the plate is paying for, which is a more honest argument than a paragraph on a menu.
Arrive a few minutes early and look at it properly rather than glancing on the way in. In the early evening there is usually somebody working.
The rest of the menu — antipasti, wood-fired pizza, larger plates — is good and is not the reason the restaurant exists. Build the meal around pasta.
It is worth noting how unusual this is as a business decision. A laboratorio takes floor space that could hold tables, requires dedicated staff, and produces a product that a supplier would sell for a fraction of the cost. Putting it at the front of the building, where the rent is highest, is a statement about what the restaurant thinks it is selling.
The effect on the food is measurable rather than romantic. Hand-rolled sheets are slightly uneven in thickness, which means the sauce clings differently across a single strand, and the texture varies bite to bite in a way that industrial pasta cannot reproduce.
Getting a table without an online system
The restaurant does not run its bookings through the major online networks, which catches out a lot of people who search for it and conclude it is fully booked.
The route in is the restaurant's own reservation page and the telephone. Calling is not a legacy inconvenience here; it is the primary channel and it works.
That also means availability is not visible to the aggregator sites, so the apparent scarcity is partly an artefact of where you are looking.
Walk-in seats at the bar exist and are worth asking about, particularly at the five o'clock opening or late in the evening.
The hours, and the best one
Monday to Thursday 5:00pm to 9:30pm. Friday and Saturday 5:00pm to 10:00pm. Sunday 5:00pm to 9:00pm. Seven nights, dinner only.
The five o'clock opening is the useful one. Venice in the early evening is at its best, the restaurant is quiet, and the pasta room is still active.
The 9:00pm Sunday close is the one to watch. Venice quietens early on a Sunday and turning up at half past eight expecting a leisurely dinner is optimistic.
There is no lunch service, so this is an evening plan only.
Abbot Kinney around it
Abbot Kinney Boulevard is a walkable stretch of shops, bars and restaurants running a few blocks inland from the beach, and it is one of the few places in Los Angeles where an evening on foot is straightforward.
The beach and the canals are both a short walk. Doing the canals in the last of the daylight and then eating at seven is the natural shape of the evening.
Parking on Abbot Kinney itself is difficult and metered; the residential streets a block or two away are easier and the walk is short and pleasant.
Afterwards, the bars along the boulevard run later than the restaurant does, which makes staying in the neighbourhood easy.
Practical notes
Felix Trattoria is at 1023 Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice, Los Angeles. Dinner nightly from 5pm; closing 9:30pm Monday to Thursday, 10pm Friday and Saturday, 9pm Sunday.
Reservations are handled through the restaurant directly rather than the major booking networks. Call if the website looks closed.
The room is loud when full. The first seating is markedly quieter if conversation matters.
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Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know whether tonight has a table, which region to order from, and what to do on Abbot Kinney beforehand? Ask Karpo to check Felix and plan the evening in Venice.
