Sotto

"After establishing himself at Sotto, chef Steve Samson has always wanted to return to the Westside." - Matthew Kang

"For a while, my favorite Italian restaurant in LA was a little basement place off Pico Boulevard called Sotto. The food was exclusively, obsessively, rigorously southern Italian (down to the chef’s refusal to use Parmigiano Reggiano) and I loved pretty much every dish. One of my go-to orders was these super light grilled pork meatballs — like the summer garden party of the meatball world. They were bright, electric actually, with loads of acid from the grill char and the fresh herby flavor of parsley. It’s the kind of thing you want atop a pile of bitter greens, not spaghetti. Sotto closed in January of 2019, but luckily LA writer (and current Eater LA associate editor) Cathy Chaplin had included a recipe for the Sotto meatballs in her 2013 compilation cookbook Food Lovers’ Guide to Los Angeles, and the local public TV station KCET excerpted it for their site not long after publishing. It is very much worth digging up today, even if you don’t have the Sotto sense memories to draw on. They’re petit, porky, and perfect." - Eater Staff

"Closed in late January. Opened by Steve Samson, Dina Samson, and Zach Pollack in 2011, the restaurant served excellent Neapolitan pizzas and pastas." - Eater Staff

"Sotto was one of LA’s most beloved Italian institutions, though it too was forced to close suddenly in January of this year." - Farley Elliott

"That’s not only laughably false (Jon & Vinny’s? Mozza? Pizzana? The recently-shuttered Sotto?) but stands in particularly stark relief at this very moment, when LA is basically overrun with pizza options across the city, from Roman style to deep dish to Neapolitan." - Farley Elliott