Taverna in Laguna Beach Has Mastered the Art of Risotto

The most obscurely located new restaurant in town? It may be Officine Brera, tucked into the rear of a parking lot at the end of 6th Street at the end of what seems like the world’s largest no-parking zone and located near a gun club a few steps...

I had not a single shred of doubt that the third and newest Cucina Alessa was going to be as good as the others. Even before it opened, I likened Alessandro Pirozzi to the James Cameron of OC Italian food—the rare auteur who can top his first...

I remember the first risotto I ever had. I ordered it at some random restaurant I decided to try on a whim one night in downtown Santa Barbara. It was a long time ago. The place is probably not there anymore. But the risotto I had was so good, so...

Risotto is one of the most difficult things for a restaurant to get right. That’s because truly great risotto needs the cook’s constant, undivided attention. The rice cannot be allowed to rest. It must be kept in perpetual motion in order to trick...

If you were going to design a restaurant representing the new Venice Beach, the one where postmodern mansions crowd next to crumbling apartment blocks, and the narrow alleys sometimes resemble the streets near the Rialto, you might well come up...