Bertolli’s (Glorious) Italian Food Tour of L.A.

Placemat at L.A.'s Caffe Bella Roma

Courtesy of Bertolli, we recently took a unique 9-hour tour of Los Angeles, indulging in Italian food from restaurants and purveyors all across town.

The verdict? A truly delicious day spent enjoying a version of our home city that we’d never seen — or tasted.

Francesco Bertolli started a little food shop in Lucca, Italy back in 1865, but these days, you’ll find Bertolli products in supermarkets across Europe, New Zealand, Australia and North America. They still make excellent olive oil and pasta sauces (which I’ve used for years), but I just recently learned that they also make prepared meals of traditional Italian dishes (like, say, Chicken alla Vodka & Farfalle). They value Italian regional cuisines and ingredients, and put this tour together  – with the help of local sommelier, food writer and lovely human being Stacie Hunt – to celebrate their connection to Italy, anywhere and everywhere.

Here’s how our staggering culinary adventure went down:

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Café Bella Roma SPQR
1513 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035 –  (310) 277-7662

We started our day here with cappuccinos and cornetti…and for that half-hour, all was right with the world.

At this small and cheerful bakery (along an otherwise faceless, concrete swath of the Westside), Roman expat Robert Amico specializes in cornetti, the Italian version of croissants. These flaky little pockets of magic use just about half the butter of their French cousins, plus a dash of shortening and a sprinkling of powdered sugar. Some have a marzipan-style cream inside, some are plain, both are delightful. Pair either with a strong espresso drink that’ll have you dreaming of the Spanish Steps, then consider hanging out until the antipasti starts appearing.

Caffeine and cornetti at Cafe Bella Roma SPQR

Obika Mozzarella Bar
Westfield Century City Shopping Center, 10250 Santa Monica Boulevard, Upper Level, Los Angeles, CA 90067 – (310) 556-2452

This modern, glassy space in what’s colloquially known as the Century City Mall is one of two local outposts of an Italian chain (the other L.A. Obika is in the Beverly Center). Obika’s Chef Simone Santopietro offers a passionate introduction to the world of bufala mozzarella, which is made from honest-to-God water buffalo milk and imported here three times a week from Italy’s southern Campania region. If you still think of mozzarella as off-white sticks of string cheese, check out a tasting of two to five ball-shaped varieties paired with arugula, tomatoes and a little spring-grassy olive oil; I swooned over the creamy and intense pontina, while Adam, who generally prefers sharp, aged cheeses, was partial to the firm, smoked affumicata. You can come here from morning ’til night, but I’d suggest trying out the prosecco-laced romance of Aperitivo Hour (4:30 to 7:30). Skip the awkward metal stools by the bar and head outside to the umbrella-shaded patio.

At Obika, the chef shows off bufala mozzarella from Italy's Campania region

Primi al Mercato and Norcino Salumeria
The Market at Santa Monica Place, 395 Santa Monica Place, Santa Monica, CA 90401 – (888) 530-5204

All hail Piero Selvaggio: the maestro of one of America’s greatest special-occasion restaurants, Valentino, has created a relaxed, affordable way to transport yourselves to southern Italy. Primi al Mercato is half a take-home deli, half a warm, friendly, white-tablecloth restaurant, a lovely place to pick up a meal to share with friends or sit down to a grown-up dinner together; Norcino is a reverent homage to meat and cheese.

We hadn’t yet been to The Market, the swanky high-end food court at the formerly dowdy, now glittering mall at Santa Monica Place, and our head was turned every few seconds by something that looked tasty — that is, until Primi al Mercato’s pasta-making demonstration caught our full attention. Chef Fernando and his wife (who make a great team) spread out flour, eggs and skill across the white-marble counter and got down to gnocchi-ing. By the time they’d finished, we’d see the birth of beet-red “Venus’ Bellybuttons” and spinach-tinted cavatelli, forming a big yummy bowl of Italian flag-i-tude. These demonstrations happen every hour, and you can purchase the spoils — even a gluten-free version — for later use. 

We headed next door to the restaurant to see what the kitchen would do with all that pasta. The crowd favorite seemed to be a lamb ragu, but I fell utterly in love with a Tuscan pici with pecorino and fava beans as big as my pinky finger. Also exciting: the wine list focuses on the Earth’s south, from Italy right ’round to Southern California; we were both pleasantly surprised by elegant, not-too-dry whites and reds from Sicily.

By now we didn’t need to eat anything else — but that was too darn bad. We hoisted ourselves 100 feet across The Market to Norcino Salumeria and cozied up to a table laid with wafer-thin slices of acorn-fed prosciutto and flute-fulls of prosecco. Sounds delightful, yes? Well, our sommelier friend Stacie insisted that, it being summertime during this tour, sparkling red Lambrusco would be the far better tipple — and in a flash, Piero made it so. Turns out this often dry, sweet and/or entirely overlooked wine makes the ideal palate-cleansing complement to the fatty richness of salumi. 

Pasta making, serving and red olives at Primi al Mercato's "laboratorio," and salumi alchemy at Norcino

Caffé Bellagio
Third Street Promenade and Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90401 – (310) 394-3400

So, you know what goes perfectly with eating too much? Gelato.

We rolled like barrels for a few blocks to the center of Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, right up to the door of a glass-covered kiosk we’d probably walked by 50 times in our young lives. (To be fair to myself, though, it’s right in front of a super-distracting Anthropologie.) Inside, magical fresh-fruit gelatos (featuring milk instead of cream) are whipped up using produce from the area’s famous farmers’ market. Beside a straight-outta-Italy orange Vespa parked inside the shop, we were treated to cool, velvety spoonfuls of the best strawberry gelato we’d ever had…all apologies to Florence.

At Caffe Bellagio, the sign behind the Vespa on which I'm sitting says: "Please don't sit on the Vespa" (*cough*)

Osteria Mamma
5730 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038 – (323) 284-7060

Our last stop of the day was way on the other side of town, in the Larchmont neighborhood near Paramount Studios. In a cozy space that for years was one of our Mexican favorites, Osteria Mamma is now a paean to the Paduan home cooking of the Cortivo family. Smiling, blond and shy, Loredana Cecchinato is the Osteria’s resident Mamma, leading her kitchen to an unassuming brilliance. Our group, far from actually hungry by now, fairly devoured a flotilla of her dishes, which were all too gorgeous to refuse.

I have only a few wonderful things to mention: fig and gorgonzola risotto; gnocchi with porcini mushrooms; sardines with ribbons of onion and plump raisins (stay with me, here, and have faith); and fig and prosciutto bruschetta with fancy little dollops of mascarpone. I’d also recommend reservations, as the two-sided dining room here is none too large. Be sure to check out the far eastern wall, lined with Cortivo family photos — including one of bombshell Mamma, where she looks a little like Sophia Loren.

Homestyle dishes from Padua and family photos at Osteria Mamma

If high airline prices to Europe are getting you down this year,
go ahead and design your own Italian food tour right outside your own front door.

Or maybe just stay in and make an Italian meal together by candlelight. (*Ahem.*)

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I love that we got to share this day with some wonderful local folks.

 From left to right:

Romy Schorr of Romy Raves  
Amir of Duo Dishes   
Andrea Fellman of Savvy Sassy Moms 
Sharon Garofalow of  Cupcakes & Cutlery  
Loredana Cecchinato, aka “Mamma”
Chrystal of Duo Dishes
Filippo Cortivo, Loredana’s son and Osteria Mamma’s manager
And beside us, sommelier and writer Stacie Hunt

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This fabulous day of stuffing our faces across L.A. was sponsored by Bertolli,
whose olive oil I’ve been cooking with since 1990.

All observations and opinions here are my own.

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