Counter Intelligence: Hostaria del Piccolo

The restaurant, on Rose Avenue about five blocks from Venice Beach, is designed to look the way Italians imagine Californians imagine a beachy Italian restaurant might look.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

The frico is fried Montasio cheese from northern Friuli on a dollop of polenta.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Costicine, roasted pork ribs rubbed with salt and pepper and presumably roasted in the big wood oven, served with cannellini beans.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Cotechino, a northern salami stuffed into pig’s feet and boiled, laid onto a small bed of lentils with mostarda di Cremona.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Chef Germano Minin watches as a worker puts the finishing touches on a plate of costicine.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Through an iPhone, a diner photographs the frico.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)