How this got started
Marco, Lucia and a pasta machine.
Marco cooked for other people for fifteen years. Lucia ran front of house at a hotel in Newport Beach. In 2018 they found a corner unit on Michelson, signed the lease, and spent the winter building a kitchen around that machine.
The recipes are their grandmother Rosa's, from Lucca. So is the pasta machine, a 1962 Imperia she shipped over wrapped in a bedsheet. It still runs every morning at 8.
900covers a week, give or take, and every one of them gets water at the door.
"We came for a birthday and stayed an hour past close because Lucia kept bringing out amaro."Renata P., Google review
"Marco came out of the kitchen to ask if the rigatoni was too spicy. It was not. We told him so."Chris W., Yelp