This week brought some good news for Italian restaurants in California, but especially in Los Angeles, where the Mediterranean-like climate is perfect for outdoor dining. (Mask on, of course.)
On Monday, Governor Gavin Newsom lifted the state-wide stay at home order, allowing restaurants to open for outdoor dining again starting Friday, January 29. After the announcement, Italian restaurants, like the newly opened Sestina pasta bar in Culver City, posted about their outdoor dining set-up, letting customers know they are open for reservations to dine al fresco.
Throughout the pandemic, pizza and pasta have proven to travel well, retaining their freshness as takeout, pick-up and a kit. And with all of the cooking at home happening, many restaurants, like Angelini Osteria, started sharing gifts from their kitchen by launching a line of sauces and assorted pantry staples on the side.
“A lot of Italian restaurants have figured out to-go in a very meaningful way,” says LA Italian restaurant expert Paul Feinstein, who also writes for La Cucina Italiana.
Feinstein has reviewed hundreds of Italian restaurants around the world and over thirty in Los Angeles. During the pandemic he's tried plenty of pasta kits. Because many of Los Angeles’ Italian restaurants are not often “high-end fine dining places,” he has concluded that many were quick to adapt their menus to a new kind of restaurant experience.
“Uovo prides themselves on getting the pasta to your plate in 30 seconds,” he says. “But they pivoted and created some of the best pasta kits I’ve ever had in my life.”
But for the Los Angeles Italian restaurant expert, the return of outdoor dining restores something more important: Italian-style entertaining.
“My favorite thing about the Italians in Los Angeles who have opened places and hired Italians as chefs, waiters and front of house is the warmth. I miss the warmth and the hospitality of Italians,” he says. “I miss going ‘home’ in a restaurant, so I'm excited to be able to go back home by going out.”
Here are some of Feinstein's favorite Italian restaurant spots in Los Angeles, with notes confirming those that will be open for outdoor dining as soon as this weekend:
Brera Ristorante *Open for outdoor dining
Forma Restaurant & Cheese Bar *Open for outdoor dining
L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele *Open for outdoor dining
Osteria Mozza * Open for outdoor dining
Mora Italiano *Open for outdoor dining
Olivetta *Open for 1:1 chef meal consultations
Osteria Angelini - *Open for outdoor dining
Rossoblu - participating in Regarding Her Food festival