Classic vs. Trendy Italian Restaurant (Taste Test)

Can LA's newest Italian restaurant make better pasta than the oldest? Let's talk about that. Good Mythical Morning. Who do you think makes a meaner pasta? Her or him? I'll wait. You're taking too long. When you're going out to a nice restaurant, you've always got a choice to make. Do you go to the spot that's been around as long as she has, or do you try the trendiest restaurant that's got a guy like this in the kitchen?

Yes, chef. Yes, chef. Yes, chef. Corner! It's time for, The Course of Time Italian Edition. Stevie, please tell us a little bit about today's restaurants. Okay, Cheetah Girls. Today's old school restaurant is one of, if not the oldest, Italian restaurants in Los Angeles. The original Barone's Famous Italian. Founded by Josephine and Jerry Barone alongside five other Italian families,

this classic red booth establishment first opened its doors way back in 1945. In the seventy-nine years since, it's remained family owned, been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and never stopped being a great place to gather with family and friends. And then we have the very hot and trendy restaurant Spina, a no reservations pasta bar that opened its doors mere months ago. The line of hopeful diners it draws is no surprise,

given there are only twenty seats inside. But it's even less surprising when you learn it's already been named one of the. Seventeen Phenomenal Places for Pasta in LA by Eater, and one of the Seventeen Best Places to Eat and Drink in LA by the LA Times. Which restaurant will have you saying. molto bene again and again? When did you learn italian? Well, you'll see throughout the episode, I have not. Oh, okay.

Okay, to kick things off, we've got Barone's calamari fritti on Rhett's side, and Spina's calamari fritti on Link's side. So. Barone's is. browner. than Spina's. Yep. Maybe the new style is. light. So are you more of, a tunnel guy or. a phalanges guy? Well, when I want to just eat for myself, I get these,

and when I want to impress the people at the table, I get those. Just depends on why you're eating, you know? Are there any dignitaries there is really the question. Oh, really? If I eat with dignitaries, I go hard! I'm trying to be dignified. It's a little spongy. Link. Barone's. was used as a shooting location for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, twenty twenty-two's Pam and Tommy miniseries, twenty twenty-two's Winning Time.

Two thousand and five's. remake of the Bad News Bears. Okay, all right. Not the orig. All right. Did you already squeeze these? Yes. Spina was used as a shooting location for those pictures we saw earlier. It's a. oranger sauce, and then there's also a yellow sauce. What is that? What is so funny, Stevie? You're just saying what colors things are, but we can see. No, no. That's what the dignitaries love. Whenever we eat with dignitaries, Link's like,

well, this one's browner than this one, and this one's more orange than that one. And they're like, yes, thank you for having us. Not everybody can see who watches, Stevie. Okay, that is not what I meant. Well. I don't love this dish, either one of them. I mean, it's both like a, it's a spongy tube. You know? I like the browner one a little bit better. Which one do you like better? I was about to say the same thing, but I'm coming back in for one more taste.

The oranger sauce is. Well, it's oranger. I think they're trying to do, like, a lighter. thing, but I actually. like the breading and kind of the classic taste of. just straight up tubey calamari. We agree. And also, you can propose at an Italian restaurant. Oh, it's my pinky, non-binding.

Next we've got Barone's meat sauce spaghetti on Rhett's side, and Spina's. tonnarelli al tartufo e salsiccia. Bless you. On Link's side. I don't know if you can see, but this one is redder. Come on, now. The meat is sparser. This looks like a very classic sitch. over here. But I want, I want a lot of meat.

to my noodle ratio, you know? I will say as well, that Barone's spaghetti that you're having right now is nineteen ninety-nine, and Spina's is thirty-nine, so it's twice as much. I'm just going to eat some more of this sauce. Nothing to write home about, but nothing to complain about. You know what I'm saying? It's a good, solid spaghetti, like you'd make at your house. You're just not communicating with anyone about it. Right. This one has. What is this right here?

Is that a truffle, shelf, shelf shuffle? Chard? It. could be. a shaped truffle. Dang, look at this. This pasta is like, you know how they're doing the new school pasta, which is a little bit like. Al dente? A little more al dente. I've heard about that. I'm going to just let my pasta, drip on the table, because you already did. The truffle is here. I love truffle. Yeah, that's got some.

As much as I don't like stuff. I do like truffle. There's no contest here, right? They call me Truffaluffagus. Sometimes, nowhere, really. You were first nicknamed that by a dignitary. There you go. You have the floor snuffle, Truffaluffagus. Truffaluffagus. Who's that Truffaluffagus over there? Oh, this is so much better, y'all. Yeah, this is something special.

that's worth paying for. This is like, do it at home. Sorry, Barone's. Love it. Oh, no. Link, your shirt. Your poor shirt. Oh, crap. The Truffaluffagus truffled a little too hard, Stevie. Okay, this round we have Barone's famous ten ounce premium choice New York pepper steak.

on Rhett's side and Spina's twelve ounce prime ribeye steak, arugula and parm on Link's side. I actually think this is working. Not a sponsor, but. Yeah, if you do the whole shirt, it all changes color. I can see it dissipating. It's a miracle. Can you cut me a piece while I'm doing this? Just a little piece. I don't like to make chewing sounds on this show. Now, it's a very peppery. Like any good friend, I'll feed it to you with a spoon. That's a very peppery steak, which is.

actually, kind of tasty. I can't really. contemplate the meat because the pepper is so strong. I like peppercorn almost as much as truffle. And whenever I go to an Italian restaurant, I bring a Tide To Go Pen. Not a sponsor. Well, you know, fun fact, Chase has. dined at Barone's many times in his life. Is that right? Yeah, I see that right there. Okay, now this one.

This one's got a bone. It's a lot thinner. It's almost like a pork chop thin. That's wild. Where do you want the meat from? Because I like the outside meat. of a ribeye. Like the fattier stuff. You want that right there? Here, I'll put it on your spoon. Oh, man. It's not that that's bad, it's just that this is. That's about the presentation of the meat. And this is about covering the meat up with.

other products. They're the same price, too. So, the pastas were. wildly different, but. the steaks are the same price. I'm loving this. And I'll say, I do not enjoy it when restaurants just give you this mixed vegetable medley and. it just seems like no one. Putting love into it. They don't care about. There's nothing happening here. At least over here, we've got. like a little bit of a trendy salad. Yeah. It's light, you know?

You want something just to push all the meat through. Is that arugula? And you want to talk about that at dinner. with whoever you're with. I mean, this is nice, right? Yeah. Let's go for it. Hey, trendy, trendy times two. Trendy two times in a row. What did you? Oh, put that knife down. Vote for. Is that part of this? When I start reaching up, don't start gesturing. Well, I want to keep eating. You can go to the next one if you want to, but I'm. Oh, gosh.

Just a little bit more for us. Quick reminder, we have an app, and within that app, there's a game where you can answer trivia and predict what's going to happen. on every day's episode of Good Mythical Morning. It's called Think it. and Sink it. It's free. All you got to do is download the Mythical Society app from the Apple or. Google Play stores, and it'll just prompt you every single day. And. you can start hitting the leaderboards. Hit it. Also, the irony is not lost on us that we're celebrating Celibacy Week,

and it is hump day. Okay. Today is going to be a hard, hard, day for you. It's the hardest day of Celibacy Week. Okay, but if you get over this hump without. humping. Didn't have to say it. Smooth sailing the rest of the week. Okay? So, what we got over there, Rhettis? Stevie's going to tell me. Stevie. Barone's linguine pescatore. And on Link's side, we have Spina's linguine al nero di seppia con branzino.

Whenever that happens on a menu, I just point. Sheepishly point. We've got, some lobster and shrimp. Oh, yeah. I typically don't order, like. Seafood pasta? Seafood pasta. What's happening? I'm trying to do a. You'll get shrimp in a burrito in a heartbeat. Yeah. I'm kind of disappointed you didn't notice that I've been doing the spoon.

twirl, but of course, it's not really working out for me. Well, I didn't want to talk about it because it didn't seem like it was working out for. you. It's not really working out for me. I would have drawn attention to it, like, really fast. I'll point at a menu, but then I'll make up for it by doing the spoon twirl. Like, all the dignitaries, you know? You just put a piece of pasta on the Italian flag right in front of the Italian. dignitary. Yeah. Stevi-o, who's been really bringing it today. My spoon twirl brings all the dignitaries to the yard.

And what did you say about the other one? Branzino? It's all in Italian. It's also a seafood pasta. So, it's my understanding that this is typically served with lobster, but. they ran out of lobster today, and they gave us sea bass. So, you can take that one of two ways. The way I'm choosing to take it is. it's always fresh, and if we run out, we move on to the next fresh thing. Whereas maybe at the other place, they just got some frozen lobster they throw on there.

They would never do that at Spina, right? Is that what you're choosing to believe? You can't control what you believe. It just kind of happens. to me. at least. I'm liking this. a lot better than that. I mean, the lobster is. It's not bad, but something about this black pasta is really getting me going. The pasta, this is not surprising, like. These new places that.

have a lot of pride in their pasta, like, they're doing a different thing. They're, like, doing a newer and different thing with the way that they make the pasta. I don't know what it is, it's like, they're just kind of doing, they're just kind of boiling it the way that they've always done it. I don't even know if they're boiling this, Link. I don't know. Nicole, are they boiling this? Yeah. You look great over there, Nicole. Thank you so much. I didn't know that's what your voice would sound like coming out of the way you.

look, though. There's no cameras on me, so, like, I'm not in character. Oh, really? Yeah, there's no cameras at point. What happens if you? What if you came out here, though? Yeah. What would happen? Hello, It's me, your favorite Italian chef. Yeah. See? Sound different over here. She transformed. It's called method acting. I read it in a book. We could use you as a tiebreaker, but we kind of know that this is better.

That's fine. I'm just hanging out. Yeah. Okay. You want to do the honors? At least do the honors. Yeah, yeah. Do you agree with this? There's a little sauce on it. I did not taste either of them, but I trust your judgments. Okay. Where is that from? I don't know. I believe it. Again, the new wins. And finally, we have tiramisu. Nice.

What? For dessert. It's for dessert. You thought she said a new Italian word. Yeah, I know. It was just for dessert. So, at this point, we're going with the new. So many more times. They've already won, but I mean, maybe the old will bring it with dessert, but again, I just think that. there's. an attention to detail that, if you. want to, like, open a new place. in a city like Los Angeles. and stay open and then get written up about it.

You got to bring it. It's not just hype. You're starting from scratch. This is amazing, though. I mean, I would have thought going into this episode, and I did, that old school Italian, it's classic dishes. You just can't beat it. If you start getting real fancy with it, it's going to unravel. But. They didn't really get too fancy. It's just they got good. They used judgment. This is a very solid tiramisu, though. This one's in a bowl.

They just scooped it out. Yeah. I think that was an accent. No, no. That was just Nicole. That wasn't Nicole in character. She's not on camera right now. Come back out here, just so you can talk to us. You don't have to say anything, but when you do, I want it to be in that accent, so I don't want you. Hello! I brought my fork. Can I eat this with you? Yes, you can. Yes, you can. I have a confession to make. I don't really like tiramisu. Oh, well, why do you seem so excited? To hang out with my friends.

Is it because it has soggy bread in it? No, I like coffee on the side of my dessert, not in my dessert. This has got a much stronger coffee taste, which makes me like it. What's the deal. with the soggy bread, chef? It's a creative decision. That's why I don't like tiramisu. Don't think soggy bread. Think moist cake. Okay. Ladyfingers are very dry, so in order to make it less dry, they put it in the espresso sometimes with a liquored up espresso.

Wow. You know a lot. This one's better. because. the cream part is really good. I like the new one better, so. I don't like the wet coffee crouton part. Nicole-io, you're going to have to make a decision. Oh, really? Let me try one more time. The sprinkles are throwing me off. I just like the espresso taste. This one's good, though.

I help you. Slower, slower, slower. More Italian. Very good. More Italian? Very good. Very good. Oh, look! Slow and Italian. Four. out of five rounds, Spina. came out on top. That means, Spina, you're our winner. And listen, as your reward, consider this your official invitation to celebrate your one hundredth. anniversary on this show with us in. twenty-one twenty-three. We can't wait.

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