That’s right. I know in a community that sometimes appears to be at an evolutionary standstill between Village Gate and the “village” this might come as a revelation. But as I meandered down Hoover in search of an Italian place I had liked once, I found that there between the Regazzi room and Papa Johns it no longer existed. I walked back into the street trying to get a better view. Perhaps it had just been consumed into the block and I could not register it. But no, I realized that there was in fact a new restaurant in its place: Bacaro. I saw now that it had the unfortunate job of sharing a banner with the neighboring nail salon and wondered whether the previous restaurant owner had had to share a similarly unfortunate fate. Either way it was not a good omen.

When I walked in, it was uncomfortable, not just because the maitre-de was extremely awkward, but also because when we arrived there was only one other couple who appeared to be friends of the owner/staff and they would shout wine orders back in the direction of the kitchen. But after taking a moment to acclamate it was easy to understand why they would want to order: there is an incredibly nice wine menu, and a limited but carefully chosen tapas menu that is located on one side of the restaurant on a huge chalkboard wall. The chalkboard wall is nice and I can imagine a nice dynamic when it is full and bar goers must gently press against each other to verify that wine they want before reordering, but in Bacaro’s lonely state it was just uncomfortable to get up and walk to the other side of the room in order to see the menu. The rest of the place is dark as well. I had first pinned the horrible ambiance on the strange gray/brown pleather seat, but I think the fluorescent lights are the real culprit. The lights are covered by a quite interesting wine bottle grate, but even this can not resurrect the color draining rain of fluorescent lights.

My date and I may have left had the extremely knowledgeable wine server not set us up with a flight of wines to compare and contrast: 8$ for two glasses of wine. We also decided to order some food even though it felt beyond our meager budget. We ordered the polenta square with roasted eggplant (3$) and crostino with dates, Gorgonzola and sage honey (3$). The food was incredibly delicious. We were still hungry and so we ordered the bread plate (2$) that had a trio of delicious breads. For this price we were able to stuff our face while staying on budget but it did make us thirsty and we were tempted to try more drinks under the careful direction of our server. I felt a little guilty when my eye would catch someone from the neighborhood walking by with a bag of groceries, and for a moment it felt strange to eat food that was so small as a luxury since I would not rule out food shortage as a neighborhood concern.

That said, among the Chanos and Petes, Bacaro does stand out as a unique and special thing in this place and has a great possible clientele in the deep pockets of the USC community. But no fear, the money will be staying in the family. Bacaro is started by two USC graduates. I left leaving full and happy. I will go again. I just hope that the next time I go there will be more people so that it is less embarrassing when I try to use the check holder as a hard service to write on so I can remember the names of the 5 word tapas and my date tells me he thinks I should leave that with the restaurant. At least then, it would be a little harder to hear the laughter.

Bacaro, 2308 S. Union Ave, LA, 90007