The 20 Best L.A. Italian Restaurants – Part 5 of 10
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Crusty Old-timers
At Pizzeria Mozza, which strictly speaking may not be Italian, although it could scarcely be interpreted as anything else, Nancy Silverton has half the city arguing over the paradigm of what real pizza might look like, and the other half trying to land a table at the restaurant. Her pizza is airy and burnt and risen around the rim, thin and crisp in the center, neither bready in the traditional Neapolitan manner nor wispy the way you find pizza in the best places in Tuscany, neither Rome-crisp nor Puglia chewy. The crust is sweet and bitter, salty and circled by crunchy charred bubbles that may or may not be snipped off by Silverton or her chef, Matt Molina, as they top the smoking pies with sausage and wild fennel, or squash blossoms and burrata (kind of cream-stuffed mozzarella), or fried eggs and pureed anchovies. Every pizza at Mozza is a unique marriage of flour, salt and smoky, hot-burning almond wood, irregular discs that are as individually lovable as children.
Mario Batali is a part owner of Mozza, and the buzziness and heat may remind you of the menus at Otto (Eight), Batali's pizza parlor in Greenwich Village, although Mozza's pizza is better than Otto's. The antipasti, which are mostly vegetables, include crackling, deep-fried squash blossoms stuffed with oozing ricotta cheese. There are rotating daily specials, the only traditional main courses served in the pizzeria, and Tuesday's crisped duck leg already has a cult of its own. David Rosoff's all-Italian wine list is short and obscure but loaded with delicious things to drink, and nothing is over $50.
Pizzeria Mozza, like La Brea Bakery, which Silverton started a few months before Campanile opened its doors in 1989, is a statement of intent. What comes across most here is Silverton's obsession with details — even the humble garbage salad, made with slivered organic lettuce, shreds of artisanal salami and buttery aged provolone, is somehow reborn.
641 N. Highland Ave., L.A., (323) 297-0101.
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| Source: Originally published by L. A. Weekly – ©2007 L. A. Weekly |
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