Il Balcone

Apparently this phone number is wrong. I would like to try it but can’t if no one is there. :(

Have loved the food since they opened in Encino! Great food!

Good fast food; decent prices; great and peaceful balcony view of bustling Santee alley shopping madness below. Il Balcone is just two months old, situated atop some stores where one segment of Santee Alley meets Olympic. Very friendly staff, surprisingly pretty patio with shaded spaces. Just delightful (and the only way to avoid bacon-​wrapped hotdogs or churros as your neighborhood meal). But how to get there? Well, look up, for starters. You must enter (from Olympic — not Maple! — there’s a stairway to the top, or you can take the elevator located next to the stairs). Try the very good spinach salad, enough for 2 at $ 5.95 for the large size, and loaded with apples and bleu cheese. And the pasta (take your pick of penne, rigatoni, spaghetti and farfalle) with pesto sauce is surprisingly delicate and creamy. But don’t try the bathrooms (disgusting, really; the restaurant actually hands you a plastic bag with soap and toilet paper), and you are forced to open old wrought iron security gates just to get in – and out. The bathrooms are shared with the stores below, and you wonder what disease you’ll catch just walking in there. If you can avoid the bathrooms, you’ll be glad you stopped in.