Pasta Sisters is LA’s Italian Restaurant on Wheels
Padova, Italy-born chef Paola Da Re and her family have accomplished a lot with Pasta Sisters since 2015. They started by offering mix-and-match, hand-made pastas and sauces from a tiny café in the Arlington Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. They expanded to a larger, higher profile space in the Helms Bakery complex, a patio-centric location tha...
The Cottages at Savoca emphasizes Californian-Italian cooking
Different chefs feel comfortable in different environments. While many prefer the intimacy of a small kitchen, from food trucks to hole-in-the-wall local haunts, Nathaniel Marcus, the senior sous-chef at the combo Ritz-Carlton-JW Marriott, prefers the massive corporate space a hotel kitchen provides. Talking about Savoca, the hotel’s centerpiece I...
New Semola restaurant in La Jolla to reinvent Italian gastronomic cuisine
This weekend, the Milanese trio behind the popular Pacific Beach pizzeria Ambrogio15 will open a new restaurant that its owners hope will encourage San Diegans to not only re-examine Italian cooking but also the concept of fine dining. Semola, the Ambrogio15 Gstronomy Project will open Saturday evening in the former PrepKitchen restaurant space at...
First Taste: Toscano Brothers serves authentic NY bagels and Italian breads in North Beach
For the past two years, famed neighborhood pizzaiolo Tony Gemignani has been working on his own bakery concept with the hope of returning European baking traditions to North Beach. Now open, his Toscano Brothers bakery is serving throwback vibes and classic breads. Designed by Gemignani himself (the chef designs all his restaurants), the Vallejo St...
Arturo Avallone, the Italian chef all Hollywood celebrities wants
When he cooks for Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, he prepares the dish she likes best, spaghetti with fresh tomatoes and basil, while to Vin Diesel he serves classic bruschetta, of which the Fast & Furious actor is particularly fond. Chef Arturo Avallone arrived in Los Angeles with a dream that, with determination, talent and passion for g...
New franchise promises to become Fresno's 'go-to Italian'
A popular Houston-based pizza brand is coming to Fresno in a big way with a five-unit franchise agreement. The husband-and-wife team of Katharina and Don Haines are bringing Russo’s New York Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen to the Central Valley after falling in love with “that perfect slice of pizza” while living in Texas, according to a news release. T...
102-year-old Tosca Cafe reopens its exuberant dining room after nearly two years of hibernation
Historic North Beach Italian restaurant Tosca Cafe has reopened for indoor dining for the first time in nearly two years. The dream team of chef Nancy Oakes (Boulevard), restaurateur Anna Weinberg (Marlowe) and designer Ken Fulk took over the space in 2019 just a month after it closed following a tumultuous six-year run under restaurateur Ken Fried...
From Sicily with Love: Pronto Italian Deli Is a True Family Affair
On April 21, 27-year-old chef and owner Adriano Piazza opened the doors of his new eatery, Pronto Italian Deli, in Downtown San Clemente after more than two years of planning and preparation. For Adriano, a Sicilian-born, classically trained chef who earned the Degree of Doctor in Gastronomic Sciences from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in...
Joe’s Italian Restaurant & Bar has opened in Ladera Ranch
Fans of Peppino’s Italian Family Restaurants will want to know that founder Joe Moscatiello has a new place and is ready to welcome diners. Peppino’s Italian Family Restaurants in Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and Foothill Ranch closed in March, Moscatiello had transferred them to a new owner before they shuttered. But on Saturday, May 1, Moscatiello,...
Tracing the Italian American Experience Thru Recipes New & Old
What is Italian American cuisine? How do we define traditional dishes transformed by Italian immigrants? Is the food we eat today the same as our mothers and grandmothers prepared? Italian American food traditions are often misunderstood and defined only in comparison to the “true” Italian canon. In reality, Italian American food is its own unique...
Cotogna alum is opening her own Italian restaurant in the Marina
A chef who’s worked at heavy-hitting San Francisco restaurants such as Cotogna, Greens and Presidio Social Club is bringing sourdough Neapolitan pizzas and handmade pastas to the Marina this spring. Called Norcina, the new restaurant from Kaitlynn Bauman will open in late May at 3251 Pierce St., between Chestnut and Lombard streets. It will be Bau...
A famed S.F. pizza chef was called an Italian ethnic slur. Now he's naming his new bagel shop after it
Pizza pro Tony Gemignani is getting into the hotly contested Bay Area bagel game, and he’s picked a potentially controversial name for the operation. Gemignani’s Dago Bagel will be located inside his new Italian bakery, Toscano Brothers. He said he chose the brand’s name, an ethnic slur sometimes aimed at people of Italian or Spanish descent, in de...