Bottega opened in the old Crepevine space on Valencia Street during the pandemic and started serving take-out, yet I never noticed them even though they’re less than two blocks from us (bad neighborhood food reporter, bad!), but I did espy them just before they started serving indoors/outdoors, a few weeks ago.  

The scoop is, they’re all scrappy, youngish Italians, mostly from Southern Italy from what I could gather, who got together to open their own space.  Despite their youth, Bottega is not hipster in the least; in fact, it’s rather cheesy, with an abundance of fake flowers and too-loud music (50s Italian pop, house, rap, bossa nova). A barely discernible video streams scenes of Italy on the back brick wall.