In this era of pig fetishization, the rustic Italian dish of porchetta — long-roasted pork, heavily laced with fennel and garlic, a carapace of burnished, crispy skin — is uber-trendy, on the menus of half the gastropubs in town. But chef Salvatore Marino has been making it since 2007 at La Bottega Marino, his equally rustic Italian market-deli in Santa Monica (there's also one in Larchmont), where you can buy it by the pound or the slice, plated with lime-green salsa verde, or in sandwich form — as Marino had it as a kid, served by food trucks in Naples. Marino's iteration of the dish is classic: a pork shoulder, heavily seasoned and wrapped with pork belly, then roasted at high temperature for hours on a bed of large chunks of carrots and onions. It's a glorious, lacquered mosaic of pig, a dish that will make you utterly happy for many reasons, not least being the hefty price of that Alitalia ticket Marino just saved you. 11363 Santa Monica Blvd., Sawtelle. (310) 477-7777, labottegausa.com. —Amy Scattergood

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