CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

There's something sweet and uncynical about Tasca. Maybe it's the small plates.

By S. Irene Virbila, Times Staff Writer

Driving west on 3rd Street through blocks I know so well, I barely glance at the shop fronts east of the Beverly Center. I glide past saucy knitted bikinis in the window of the Knitter's Studio and, just before Crescent Heights Boulevard, a blue storefront with a sign spelling out "Tasca" in pretty lettering swims up out of the gloom.

Though this Spanish-Mediterranean wine bar opened nearly a year ago, it has just now gotten its wine and beer license after a year's worth of delays. For the three young owners, it's been a terrible hardship. How can you have a wine bar without being able to serve wine?

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But now they have it, and I invited some friends to check it out with me. I was there once, early on, and liked it. Though Tasca obviously didn't enjoy the decorating budget of A.O.C. just up the street, this little place more than makes up for it in soul. The owners are Gustavo Landgrebe, Daniel Flores and Kristine Dadayan. Landgrebe and the chef, Nano Crespo, are both Argentine. Crespo used to work at Amalfi Ristorante & Bar on North La Brea Avenue and at Il Sole on Sunset Boulevard, so he knows his way around a sauté pan.

There's something so sweet and uncynical about this place that you're predisposed to like it, even before the food arrives. It's mostly small plates, with some larger plates tucked away at the back of the menu.

While I wait for my friends to show, two women next to me devour — and I mean devour — the steamed mussels in saffron broth, going at them with such obliviousness, sauce is dripping off their chins and fingers. They use almost the entire contents of their bread basket to soak up the juices, as one of them recounts a run-in with her lover's in-laws.

We start with some cured meats, most from the local La Española, arranged on a board that's actually the end plank of a wooden wine box — jamón serrano cut very fine, delicious fuet sausage, a spicier sarta sausage and some bresaola, the air-dried beef from northern Italy.

I love that you can get boudin noir, or blood sausage, with sautéed apples and onions, or a delicious crostini of vinegary white anchovies, tomatoes and sliced hard-boiled egg. Patatas a la riojana, potatoes with chorizo sausage in a seductive smoked paprika sauce, disappear in a flash. We had to order another round. And why not some of those saffron mussels too?

Everything I try is fresh and delicious. You can stick with all small plates or move on to a more substantial steak frites, the flatiron cut lavished with a classic maitre d'hotel butter — that's butter, minced parsley, salt, pepper and a little lemon juice. There's a hefty double pork chop with red cabbage and garlic mashed potatoes, and a duck confit with fingerling potatoes. But whether you're ordering black cod with warm Tuscan bean salad and a perky salsa verde or a Catalonian-style fish stew, everything is shareable.

As the evening wears on, more and more people filter in: here a table, there a table, and more people perched at the bar. But it's actually more like a bohemian cafe.

Without big backers, but with their youth, enthusiasm and an innate sense of hospitality, the owners have created an atmosphere in which you feel comfortable just sitting for a while, spending time with your friends, ordering a few dishes. And then another few dishes. And so the evening goes.

virbila@latimes.com

Tasca

Where: 8108 W. 3rd St., L.A. (Parking in back.)

When: 6 to 10 p.m. Sundays and Tuesdays through Thursdays; 6 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Closed Mondays.

Cost: Small plates, $6 to $16; salads and soups, $8 to $13; large plates, $15 to $22; sides, $5; desserts, $7.

Info: (323) 951-9890, www.tascawinebar.comv