Have stove, will travel

Now that Nancy Silverton is no longer involved at Campanile (her former husband and partner, Mark Peel, recently bought her out), she’s a chef without a restaurant. But she can’t stay away from the stoves, so she’s become a traveling chef.

Monday nights she does a mozzarella menu at the bar at Jar. And now on Tuesday nights she’s got something going at La Terza on 3rd Street, where she already designs the Italian-inspired desserts.

She calls it Tavola Italiana, “Italian Table.” It’s a series of antipasti plates similar to the eye-popping array you might find at a traditional trattoria in Rome. She’s got them spread out over a wooden farm table and dishes them up herself.

You order from a printed menu that lists the dishes available in sushi menu format. Put a check next to the dishes you want to order (most are in the $3 to $4 range), and your server will take it from there.

On a recent night, she was making wonderful bruschetta “oiled bread” topped with a white bean puree perfumed with rosemary.

You can order toasted almonds with fleshy bright green olives, burrata cheese with good prosciutto and cipolline in agro dolce (sweet and sour sauce).

I loved the seared cuttlefish, which is sweeter and fleshier than squid. And the tender octopus and a lively fresh tomato sauce. She’d adapted the Piedmontese idea of bagna caoda to a soft-boiled egg; it’s set down on grilled radicchio dressed with an anchovy sauce.

We tried the tender braised baby artichokes, the pork belly with salsa verde, the head cheese with mustard, and on and on.

But you can just as easily stop after three or four little dishes and continue on with La Terza’s regular menu, adding a pasta or two -- maybe the tagliolini with sauteed shrimp, asparagus and lemon or the fusilli with lamb ragout and fresh mint. Finish it off with stinco di vitello (roasted veal shank, which is Tuesday’s daily special), grilled “scottadito” lamb chops or pork chop Milanese.

For dessert, don’t forget Nancy’s ricotta fritters with sour cherry compote and mascarpone ice cream or her sumptuous torta della Nonna with its heart of custard.

You could call her menu Italian tapas, but I wouldn’t. Just sit back with a glass of Chianti or Valpolicella and explore the wonderful world of Italian antipasti from a chef who knows and loves the subject.

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La Terza

Where: 8384 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles

When: 5:30 to 11 p.m. Tuesdays. Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Tavola Italiana items, $2 to $4. Regular menu: appetizers, $9 to $16; pasta and risotto, $12 to $23; daily specials, $14 to $22; fish, $23 to $34; wood-fired rotisserie and grill, $24 to $34; desserts, $8 to $10.

Info: (323) 782-8384