Last night’s Neve Ice party at Osteria La Buca was like a blogger Tweetup. Build free, delicious cocktails and they will come. Heh. I arrived with ShopEatSleep and SocialDomainLA and ran into Food GPS, Teenage Glutster, marpop, SauceLA, Thirsty in LA, Squashblossom, inomthings and Eating LA. Craziness. We were all there to enjoy the cocktails created by Michel Dozois of Neve Ice and Steve Livigni of La Descarga.

There were four creations, but my favorites were the Eloper (Dimmi Italian Liqueur, vodka, lemon juice, melon juice, prosecco) and the Silenzio Dolce (Zaya Rum, Averna Amaro, blood orange juice, Nocello Walnut Liqueur, super fine sugar), which was named by the winner of my contest, @marissamed. Yay, Marissa! The Silenzio had a rim of sugar but surprisingly wasn’t as sweet as I thought it was going to be. At least I didn’t think so; others seemed to disagree and prefer Michel’s cocktail with the scotch and cynar. This I found a bit intense but the hard-core among us seemed to appreciate its bite.

Speaking of bites, there were some apps passed around like a squash blossom pizza and gnocchi, but I was really glad I had eaten before, else I would have just grabbed that dish of nommy gnocchi for myself.

The space where the party was held gave it a speakeasy vibe as it was located behind the Osteria La Buca restaurant where we had to enter through an alley. Apparently this space is going to be opened up in the future when it will become the new entrance for the restaurant and set up as a prosciutto and wine room, complete with hanging meats. Diners can order the meats to be sliced up tableside a la handmade prosciutto carts. There will also be a glass-encased pasta-making room for foodie voyeurism. Best part is that construction will take place during the hours the restaurant is closed so you can still dine here uninterrupted.

Osteria La Buca
5210 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90038 (map)
(323) 462-1900