NEWS FROM : CALIFORNIA  

Supporters of the two newest additions to Little Italy San Jose got a sneak peek at a June 22 preview event for Poor House Bistro and the Little Italy Museum and Cultural Center. The 5,000-square-foot piazza that connects the two venues was full of people who paid $30 a pop to dine on food from Poor House Bistro as well as Paesano’s and Bibo’s Pizz...

My Sicilian side can tend to dominate. That intense passion for the things I love, bordering on an obsessive impulse to research, study and dig deep, includes food. This was only fueled by homecooked pastas and sauces from my Italian mama and grandfather growing up on both coasts. Add in my crucial teen years in New Jersey after we moved across the...

Highlighted by a display of its design collaboration with the late Virgil Abloh, high-end Italian furniture brand Cassina unveiled its largest store to date in May on North Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood. “We are extremely excited to open the largest Cassina Store in Los Angeles, sharing our unique vision of the home with the American public...

Lauren Veca was worried about the meatballs. The 62-year-old doula had insisted on making her mother’s recipe for the Garibaldina Society’s upcoming monthly pasta dinner, but now she was having second thoughts. “You’re having performance anxiety because of these meatballs,” said the club’s president, Nicole Infante, 48, a mother of two who never si...

Don’t worry, if your love language is less “word of affirmation” and more “drenched in carbonara,” you are not alone. Food brings people together, feeds the soul (literally), and makes us happy. And if you are anything like me, it is that much better when the food happens to be hand-made traditional pasta, like it is at this Italian restaurant in L...

Behind the walls of the windowless Barman Building in Beverly Hills, La Dolce Vita—the legendary restaurant and Frank Sinatra-Sammy Davis Jr. hangout that opened in 1966 but closed in March 2020 because of the pandemic—is back. The front door, with its massive cheetah-shaped handle, swings ajar to reveal a luscious new dining room, and maître d’ Ch...

The hand of God animating Adam just by a touch is not how Adam’s creation is described in the Torah. Genesis 2:6 reads: “And Hashem God formed the man of dust from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life; and man became a living being.” However, the divine touch is the way the great medieval Italian artist Michelangelo imagined t...

Italian actress Silvia Bottini is bringing her show, Pinocchio the Wooden Boy around the LA area, with the next date in Sylmar, on Saturday 24. The play has been produced by the Italian Consulate in LA and IAMLA (the Italian American Museum in Los Angeles), where it has also debuted. Bottini received the support of the IIC for the staging of her wo...

La Pastaia, a Venetian-style Italian restaurant, has opened its doors in Bay Park. The restaurant is owned and operated by two women who moved to the United States from Sicily, Italy in their early 20s to chase their dream of opening their own Italian restaurant. The restaurant’s name, La Pastaia, means “The Pasta Lady.” La Pastaia is the brainchil...

Are you looking for a great Italian sandwich? Interested in Amari or some good Italian wine? Pizza dough, house-made sauce, and pasta in all shapes and sizes, Mona Lisa Deli on India Street at Hawthorn in Little Italy has got it all. I have been a faithful customer for 25-plus years, and I am still trying to figure out what they don’t have. The Del...

San Francisco's favorite pizzaiolo, Tony Gemignani, is launching a new festival this summer, and it features all the hits: pizza, bagels and beer. The aptly named Pizza, Bagel & Beer Festival is slotted to take place on Aug. 19 in North Beach, with over 45 participating local pizzerias, bagel-makers and breweries.  “For the last eight years, there’...

AnniVenti La Trattoria(link is external), an Italian restaurant owned and operated by three brothers, is now open in Lemon Grove. The restaurant is named after their family's original restaurant located just 10 miles from Palermo in Italy, where the brothers grew up working. Emanuele Gagliano, one of the brothers, says, "It's been our lifelong drea...