A Movable Beast: L.A. Weekly's 99 Essential Restaurants

Mozza
If you have been lucky enough to score a seat at a beefsteak dinner at Mozza, you know that it's an homage to Chianti's Officina della Bistecca, served at a Friday-only pop-up called Mangiare in Famiglia, in the Scuola di Pizza that serves as an annex to Mozza2Go, which is the retail arm of Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza next door. The last time you contemplated a setup like that, you probably were looking at either a set of Russian dolls or one of those charts showing interlocking directorships that the Nation likes to run.

Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali, who co-own the restaurant with Nancy Silverton, famously opened Eataly in Manhattan this year, an enormous foodspace serviced by more kitchens and boutiques than a Refosco-sozzled citizen could reasonably be expected to count. The hydra-headed Mozza complex is hardly less complex, oozing down its Melrose block and leaving nothing but smiling, garlic-scented customers in its wake. If it's Monday, do you wait in line for the pizzeria, or do you get takeout from Mozza2Go, knowing that it's the only day they bake focaccia? In the osteria, will it be stuzzichini at the bar, milky snacks from Silverton at the Mozzarella Bar, or a last-minute table way in the back, so remote you half-expect St. Bernards to arrive with kegs of Barolo around their necks? Mozza presents even seasoned observers with a single, overwhelming question: How can I get a reservation? As with Silverton's famous natural-starter bread recipe, if you want to eat Matt Molina's handmade pastas and roasted guinea fowl tonight, it is necessary to have begun the process last month.

PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN

Campanile's sauteed trenne

PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN

Leo Bulgarini, gelato impresario

Location Info

Map

Zelo Gourmet Pizzeria

328 E. Foothill Blvd.
Arcadia, CA 91006

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Foothill Cities

Photos

1 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare

Next door at the wonderful but oversubscribed Pizzeria Mozza, Silverton has more or less reinvented the very idea of pizza, airy and burnt and risen around the rim, thin and crisp in the center, neither bready in the traditional Neapolitan manner nor as wispy as you find it in Rome. (Standard disclaimer: Silverton is a family friend. A family friend who happens to make breathtakingly good pizza.) In addition to a full array of Pizzeria Mozza salads, antipasti, lasagne and panini, Mozza 2Go offers a few things not available in the restaurant proper, including a porchetta sandwich that practically explodes with fennel pollen and a flat, round, hot panino stuffed with greens and custom-made stracciatella cheese that is the closest thing to the legendary torta al testo of central Umbria you'll ever find in California. Pizzeria: 641 N. Highland Ave. (323) 297-0101. Osteria: 6602 Melrose Ave., L.A. (323) 297-0100. Daily, noon-10 p.m. 6610 Melrose Ave., L.A. (323) 297-1130, mozza2go.com. Takeout and delivery Tues.-Sun. Location maps here: Pizzeria and Osteria.

Musso & Frank Grill
It's late afternoon. The warm scent of wood smoke spreads across the room. A red-jacketed waiter comes over and pours a clear, cold martini, Hollywood's best, from a pony into a tiny frosted glass, then carefully spoons Welsh rarebit — rich and warm, if a little grainy — from a metal salver onto crustless toast. Here in these worn wooden swivel chairs beneath the ancient hunt-scene wallpaper, this seems very much the perfect gentleman's lunch. The service is solicitous, but mostly leaves you to your own thoughts. You can order coffee and a bread pudding and people-watch for hours during the pre-theater rush. Musso's, the oldest real restaurant in Los Angeles, is an easy place to be happy. 6667 Hollywood Blvd., Hlywd. (323) 467-7788. Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Full bar. Validated parking in rear. AE, DC, MC, V. Location map here.

Nem Nuong Khanh Hoa
Nem nuong is the emblematic dish of the Khanh Hoa region of central Vietnam, a kind of bouncy pork meatball impaled on a skewer, grilled over an open flame, served smoky and sizzling and naked on a plate. Nem Nuong Khanh Hoa isn't much to look at, but the nem nuong is pretty spectacular, served as part of a combination platter, with tiny pork patties grilled in banana leaves, a heap of cha ram tom, crunchy cigarette-size egg rolls, the sour fermented pork lozenges called nem chua, and grilled lemongrass-marinated beef, among other things — all ready to be rolled up in rice paper with vegetables and Vietnamese herbs, in a rhythm you might have picked up backstage at a Burning Spear concert. After half an hour you are happy, full and stinking of garlic. 1700 W. Valley Blvd., Alhambra. (626) 943-7645. Open Wed.-Mon., 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Cash only. No alcohol. Parking lot. Location map here.

Newport Seafood
Newport Seafood has a lengthy menu, and you're free to riffle through it. It's Southeast Asian-inflected Cantonese food, we think, maybe Chiu Chow, although as far as I can tell, even the owners haven't quite figured it out. Then after you've studied up, you'll order the same things everybody else in the place is eating: Vietnamese-style sautéed beef, fried pea leaves with garlic, salt-and-pepper squid perhaps, and then the epic house-special lobster — a mammoth beast fried with chiles, black pepper and scallion, a dish that will live under your fingernails for weeks. The lobsters, generally 5 to 6 pounds apiece at about $15 per pound, are not cheap, but they feed many. 518 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel. (626) 289-5998, newportseafood.com. Open Sun.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Takeout. Beer and wine. Parking lot. All major CC. Location map here.