Steve Samson

Sotto: 99 Essential Restaurants 2013

Porchetta Hits L.A.: The Mysteries of Pigsburgh

Porchetta is the thing to eat right now -- but deep roots belie its current trendiness

Where Chefs Eat: The Hardcover Version Where Michael Voltaggio Goes for "Stoner Sushi"

Where Chefs Eat, a new book from Phaidon, is a compilation of the eateries worldwide where 400 chefs like to dine (David Chang, Rene Redzepi Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud, Anita Lo, Fergus Henderson, among them) what they order, and when they like to go (very early, or very late, most likely). Sound fa ... More >>

Where the Chefs Eat: Sotto's Steve Samson

Where the Chefs Eat is an ongoing series in which we ask a local chef to give us his or her favorite dining options. This week, Steve Samson, chef (along with Zach Pollack) at Sotto, tells us his favorite spots to eat these days. Although he's known for his unflinchingly Italian cooking at Sotto, o ... More >>

11 Great L.A. Chefs Tell Us Their Holiday Food Traditions

For the past couple of weeks, we've been talking to L.A. chefs about their holday food traditions. Here's a roundup of all of those great chefs and what they do for the holidays, food-wise, plus a couple of extras thrown in for good measure.

Chefs Cook At Home, The Holiday Edition: Animal's Jon Shook A Recipe For Apple Sauce

For the past week or so, we've been featuring the holiday food traditions of L.A. chefs. Today, we talk to Animal and Son of a Gun chef Jon Shook (who is expecting a wee babe in the spring -- mazel tov) about latkes, brisket, ham and casserole. "I grew up in a Jewish household, so we always had po ... More >>

Chefs Cook At Home, The Holiday Edition: Sotto's Steve Samson A Recipe For Tortellini

This week and next, we'll be featuring the holiday food traditions of L.A. chefs. Today, Sotto's Steve Samson tells us about his family's Christmas tortellini. "My mom is from Bologna so practically every special occasion meal, especially Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, is centered around tortelli ... More >>

Chefs Cook At Home, The Holiday Edition: Le Ka's Remi Lauvand A Recipe for Shigoku Oysters

This week and next, we'll be featuring the holiday food traditions of L.A. chefs. Today, Remi Lauvand, chef at the new downtown restaurant Le Ka, talks about his holiday traditions. "I have some great friends who make sure I don't have to do too much during the holidays. I don't really want to spe ... More >>

The Chef's Library: Steve Samson Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi

The Chef's Library is a series in which we ask chefs around town to tell us about their favorite cookbooks. Today, we talk to Steve Samson, chef (along with Zach Pollack) of Sotto. It's so surprise that Steve Samson's favorite cookbooks cover the history of the cooking of his greatest muse, Italy. ... More >>

L.A. Loves Alex's Lemonade: A Recap of the 2012 Event

L.A. Loves Alex's Lemonade Stand is arguably the premier charity auction/food and wine event raising money -- a lot of money -- for pediatric cancer research. Hosted by Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne (Lucques, A.O.C., Tavern) and David Lentz (The Hungry Cat), it was held for the third year in a row ... More >>

5 Best Pizza Slice Joints in Los Angeles

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. With so much of the focus on hyper-authentic Neapolitan pies and artisanal knife-and-fork creations these days, it's easy to forget about the other great bastion of the pizza world -- the slice joint. The culture of paper-plate pi ... More >>

10 Best Pizza Restaurants in Los Angeles

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. 10. 800 Degrees Not since Bill Walton led the Bruins to a 30-0 record have UCLA students had such good reason to rejoice. Westwood's newest pizzeria, a fast-casual concept dreamed up by Umami guru Adam Fleischman, is open until 2 ... More >>

Cheese, Please: What's the Deal With Mozzarella?

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. In L.A.'s not-so-distant pie past, family pizza night meant Friday evening quibbles over thick versus thin crust, debates over the proportion of marinara sauce to other ingredients and, inevitably, a few irreconcilable topping dif ... More >>

Life of Pie: L.A. Celebrates Its Pizza Moment

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. On a Wednesday evening, 10 students sit along the counter at the Scuola di Pizza, the, yes, "School of Pizza" at L.A.'s premier pizza joint, Mozza. I'd like to say we're a varied lot, but that wouldn't be true -- we're uniformly w ... More >>

75: Porcetto at Sotto

Leading up to this year's Best of L.A. issue (due out Oct. 4), we'll be counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes. 75: Porcetto at Sotto. Porchetta is one of those dishes that, once you've tried it, tends to feature prominently in recurrent dreams. The same genre of dream a ... More >>

Vendors Announced for 2012 L.A. Street Food Fest

One of the year's biggest food festival has gotten even larger this year. The L.A. Street Food Fest, which takes place on July 21 inside the Rose Bowl, just announced that it has upped its vendor counts to a staggering 100 participants, far exceeding the count from last year. The cast includes man ... More >>

David LeFevre Hosts 7-Chef Birthday Dinner at Manhattan Beach Post

Most people celebrate their 40th birthday with a night out their favorite restaurant. Chef David LeFevre is doing his a bit differently -- he's hosting a 7-chef, 5-course meal at his own Manhattan Beach restaurant Manhattan Beach Post on July 16. Alongside him will be Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook of A ... More >>

Lou Amdur and Sotto Celebrate Sicily This Thursday

What has wine guru Lou Amdur been up to since selling his wine bar earlier this year? Quite a bit, apparently. Fresh off a recent trip to Sicily (Vittoria and Etna, for those keeping score), Amdur will be hosting a one-night Sicilian wine dinner at Sotto on June 21, at 7 p.m., focusing on natural It ... More >>

Watch This Now: The Tasting Kitchen's Casey Lane Discusses 'Working Ripe'

When we here at Squid Ink use the term "working ripe" it usually refers to those times when we head into the office after a particularly moist gym workout, but for Casey Lane, head chef at Venice's Tasting Kitchen (as well as the upcoming Parish and Itri), the term has another meaning altogether. I ... More >>

Sotto's One Year Anniversary Party: Discounted Drinks Free Bar Bites

Before they opened Sotto last year, Steve Samson and Zach Pollack went direct to Naples and hauled in all the raw materials to build a proper pizza oven -- that would be 15,000 pounds worth of cement, bricks and Vesuvian sand. So heavy were these building blocks that the delivery truck nearly topple ... More >>

Food GPS' Lamb Showdown: In Which Walter Manzke, Steve Samson & Zach Pollack Cook You a Lamb Dinner

If you love lamb more than, well, other very tasty farm animals, then you probably have someplace to be on Monday, Feb. 20, at 7:30 p.m. And no, we do not mean volunteering your services to the folks at Windrose Farm, although that's not a bad idea. Food GPS is presenting the first (hopefully of man ... More >>

Clean Plates Los Angeles 2012: Attempts Healthy L.A. Dining Guide

Clean Plates Los Angeles 2012: A Guide to the Healthiest Tastiest and Most Sustainable Restaurants for Vegetarians and Carnivores, released last week by New York City-based "health coach" Jared Koch, is more than another list of restaurant recommendations. First, the book's 52-page "Design Your Ow ... More >>

Food News Roundup: Giant Rabbits, Making Cider in Burgundy, Holiday Roasts The Glutton in Winter

Anne FishbeinSotto chefs Steve Samson and Zach Pollack​Forbes: 30 mover-and-shakers under 30 in the food and wine industry. (Congrats Jordan Kahn and Zach Pollack.) The Salt, NPR's Food Blog: Why Are We More Hungry In The Winter? Los Angeles Magazine: This year's top 10 restaurants in L.A. ... More >>

Top 5 Weekend Food Events: Thanksgiving Eve Bourbon, Wild Gourmet Food, Venison Fair, 4 Chefs in One, Holiday Beer Class

Thanksgiving Eve Bash Steady your nerves for a day of family togetherness with a pre-Thanksgiving shindig featuring a traditional Corn Hole Toss and $6 cups of a seasonal punch made with Wild Turkey. ($1 from each glass will be donated to a local shelter.) WHEN: Nov. 23 WHERE: Seven Grand COST: Free ... More >>

Sotto: 99 Essential Restaurants 2011

Thanksgiving Eve Bash Steady your nerves for a day of family togetherness with a pre-Thanksgiving shindig featuring a traditional Corn Hole Toss and $6 cups of a seasonal punch made with Wild Turkey. ($1 from each glass will be donated to a local shelter.) WHEN: Nov. 23 WHERE: Seven Grand COST: Free ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Sotto

Thanksgiving Eve Bash Steady your nerves for a day of family togetherness with a pre-Thanksgiving shindig featuring a traditional Corn Hole Toss and $6 cups of a seasonal punch made with Wild Turkey. ($1 from each glass will be donated to a local shelter.) WHEN: Nov. 23 WHERE: Seven Grand COST: Free ... More >>

Test Kitchen Alumni Return for Anniversary

Guzzle & NoshSotto's boscaiola pizza; the exterior of the two restaurants; Picca's mollejita.​Next Monday, the former Test Kitchen space celebrates its 1-year anniversary with the return of several high-profile TK alumni to the kitchens. Upstairs at Picca, chef Ricardo Zarate will host Kogi im ... More >>

L.A.'s Top 10 Sunday Suppers Tender Greens Kicks Off Sunday Beer Garden

Photos by Anne FishbeinMeals from Lucques (left), Church & State (middle) and Palate (right).​This weekend, Tender Greens in Hollywood will kick off its first Sunday beer garden, a monthly event with all-you-can-eat roasted meat and all-you-can-drink craft beer for a flat fee of $35. (We had a ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 4/18-4/22

Flickr/Lauren Manning​ In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "As Sotto, the new Italian restaurant from Steve Samson and Zack Pollack, who ran David Meyer's Pizza Ortica at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, somebody sprung to fix up the basement, because it is ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Sotto

Flickr/Lauren Manning​ In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "As Sotto, the new Italian restaurant from Steve Samson and Zack Pollack, who ran David Meyer's Pizza Ortica at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, somebody sprung to fix up the basement, because it is ... More >>

First Bite: Sotto, or The Happiness of Abattoir Jocks

F. FriesemaJonagold apples​ When it housed Test Kitchen, the dim, low-ceilinged restaurant space below the old Orlando-Orsini had a kind of cheerful rec-room vibe, like a pop-up jazz club where the artists just happen to wield knives instead of saxophones. As Sotto, the new Italian restaurant ... More >>

Update: Sotto's Neapolitan Pizza Oven Ready to Burn

Last week we took a peek into Sotto's Neapolitan pizza oven, which was imported brick by brick from Naples and in the middle of being hand-built by third-generation oven-builder Stefano Ferrara. (It's one of less than 10 hand-built Ferrara ovens in the United States.) Ferrara finished the oven an ... More >>

A Peek Into Sotto's Hand-Built Neapolitan Pizza Oven; Will Soft-Open Feb. 25

Great pizza begins with a great oven, which is why Steve Samson and Zach Pollack of Sotto, the Italian restaurant opening in the bottom floor of the Test Kitchen space, went straight to Naples for theirs, importing 15,000 pounds of materials and even the oven designer himself. It's a massive inves ... More >>

Test Kitchen's Final Night: Alums Come Together To Feed You For A Good Cause

Flickr/Muy Yum​ Monday, December 13th, may be Test Kitchen's final dinner service, but Bill Chait and Brian Saltsburg's restaurant experiment is going out with a big-time culinary (and charitable) bang. For $150/person, Test Kitchen and non-profits Share Our Strength and Gettlove, are bringin ... More >>

Sotto & Picca Opening in Test Kitchen Space

As Test Kitchen, LA's experiment in musical chefs, takes its victory lap and bids farewell, the concept is already being transformed into something less temporal featuring two (semi-)permanent restaurants and a bar. In late January, Steve Samson and Zach Pollack will open Sotto, their Italian res ... More >>

Breadbar Hatchi Series Continues with Makoto Okuwa

Sashi Sushi Sake LoungeChef Makoto Okuwa​ Makoto Okuwa is a busy man these days. Not only is he executive chef at Manhattan Beach's Sashi Sushi Sake Lounge, he recently appeared as a challenger on Food Network's Iron Chef America. Now he's headed north, bringing his Power of Miso menu to B ... More >>