"That was stepping off the cliff and falling in," L.A. restaurateur Jerry Greenberg says of his decision to have a kitchen in Italy for Uovo, his new restaurant in Santa Monica. Greenberg and partner Lele Massimini, who was born and raised in Rome, had been talking about opening a pasta restaurant for the "better part of a decade." After eating around Italy for years, they had found red-yolk eggs that make superior pasta. Their plan was simple: They would ship eggs to L.A.

"We worked with the government and found out you couldn't do that," Greenberg says. So Greenberg remembers stepping away from a back-to-school gathering with his family and getting on the phone with his partners, who also include Lowell Sharron and Massimini's brother Carlo.