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)
