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dinner menu alongside porcini-crusted
sweetbreads seemed brash and downright
cheeky. How Californian was that?
But now the Sunset Strip Spago has
closed, and pizza only survives on the
lunch menu at Puck's new
Spago Beverly
Hills
(176 N. Cañon Dr.;
&
310/385-0880
).
Favorites such as the pesto shrimp pizza,
the duck sausage pizza, and spicy chicken
and caramelized sweet corn pizza are still
there, but not featured prominently; it's
as if Puck preferred to leave his often-
caricatured signature dish behind. (Not
that Puck himself does much cooking
these days.)
But never fear: There's a new pizza star
in Hollywood. In 2007, the team of Nancy
Silverton, Mario Batali, and Joseph Basti-
anich opened
Pizzeria Mozza
at 641 N.
Highland Ave. (
&
323/297-0101;
www.
mozza-la.com). It's really Silverton's baby:
Having moved on from the La Brea Bakery
where she made her name, she has turned
her artisanal bread-baking passion toward
refining the perfect Neapolitan-style pizza
crust, while chef Batali, who knows a thing
or two about Italian food, helped refine
the pizza toppings.
The decor is entirely unpretentious—the
plain, high-ceilinged space houses about a
dozen tables, some counter seating, and
an open kitchen where Nancy usually pre-
sides. The pizza list runs to about 15 differ-
ent combinations of ingredients such as
house-made fennel sausage with panna
and red onion; Gorgonzola dolce with fin-
gerling potatoes, radicchio, and rosemary;
or rapini with black olives, cherry toma-
toes, and anchovy—not your usual pizze-
ria classics, but still in the Neapolitan
ballpark (though there are a few more dar-
ing experiments, like the speck, pineapple,
jalapeño, mozzarella, and tomato pizza).
At Pizzeria Mozza—much as at its sister
restaurant,
Osteria Mozza,
around the
corner at 6602 Melrose Ave. (
&
323/297-
0100
), where the most coveted seat is at
the mozzarella bar—it's all about quality
ingredients and letting the flavors shine
through. And of course, these days, it's as
Pizzeria Mozza—with toppings designed by Mario Batali and crusts by Nancy Silverton.
