Must say, decided to go to Chi Spacca tonight based on this thread.
No hamachi collars on the menu, and no goat…but worse than that, I just don’t get the place. I suppose we over-ordered, but at the price point of $170/person just on food, I would want to feel like I am eating extraordinary things. In contrast, things just taste fine here.
Maybe it just greatly depends what you order. The closest to a great dish was the anchovy toast with butter. An absurdly decadent, salty, buttery toast that pushes the palate right up to its limits, and somehow works wonderfully. Funnily enough, this was a dish we were randomly given for free.
The toast with ciauscolo was ok, the bread was incredible, but not entirely sure about the ciauscolo itself. I am not sure if it was served too cold and should’ve been more spreadable, or not. I guess it was fine, fairly classical in terms of the juniper flavors at least.
The pickles were top notch, with pickled persimmons perhaps being the most interesting thing in the entire meal.
The focaccia di recco was good, but sort of limp, a bit oversalted in some parts, no salt in others. Overall tasty enough I suppose.
Asador potatoes were fine, flavorful enough, but perhaps should’ve been more crispy versus chewy at the edges? Eh, how wrong can you go with lardo and rosemary? Good enough.
The fideos a la Catalana were an uncharacteristic dish. The carabineros on top of them was perfection, and overall it was a solid dish, but thinking about fideos I’ve had recently, such as at Cala in SF, the aioli just wasn’t flavorful enough to make the whole dish pop it seemed like. Certainly a solid dish, but would’ve been nice if they could’ve included 2 carabineros for $42, maybe asking too much, though.
The real failure was the Flannery beef bistecca fiorentina, which just didn’t really work at all. The waitress kind of solid it as an interesting version that the restaurant was particularly excited about. It seemed cooked straightforwardly, but my dining companion said it tasted like beef from Walmart cooked by expert chefs… and even with the aging it was true, there were gristly, inedible veins of fat in every piece, and the flavor didn’t seem to be anything particularly noteworthy. My friend and I often go out and have steak together, and compared two our last two steaks at Felix and Rosaline, we both agreed that despite this being the most expensive one, it was by far the worst steak we’ve had recently.
Service is quite good. The ambiance of the place is wonderful. The food is about a 7/10 overall, but the prices are 9/10 levels.
I can’t see myself craving anything we had really, and I actively regret purchasing the bistecca. It feels like the standards that the pricing sets for the place just aren’t quite being met by the food. Too bad given how pleasant the staff and ambiance are. Also, the ease of walking in without a reservation. 
(Salt’s Cure also used to do them when they were young and hip; they were truly unbelievable, I still think about them 5 years later).