F***, Chuck, Marry: LA Italian Restaurants

Italian food in LA is basically Intimacy in carb form. It’s messy, indulgent, sometimes transformative, sometimes just fine, but it always says something about who you are and what you’re willing to put up with. A bowl of pasta can feel like a one-night stand, like a setup your friends won’t shut up about, or like waking up next to someone who already made you coffee and remembered how you take it.

This volume is about exactly that: the fling that got too real, the neighborhood setup that’s secretly more real estate deal than romance, and the chic little dining room where you suddenly catch yourself saying, “Oh my god, I think I could actually do forever.”

F***: Cento

Cento is the fling that went further than it was supposed to. It started as a pop-up, quick, scrappy, no-strings. And then one day it got a permanent space. Suddenly you’re blinking at the ceiling, asking yourself: wait, are we actually doing this? It still carries that improvised, rule-breaking energy, which is exactly what makes it so magnetic, and so impossible to forget.

The pasta is playful, messy, occasionally shocking, like someone trying a move half by accident, and it landing hard. The beet pasta throws sweetness to the front where you least expect it, and instead of flinching, you lean in. This isn’t candlelit romance; this is 2 p.m. hookup energy, the edible equivalent of “How did we end up naked? We should probably go back out to the party, right?”

And then there’s the restlessness. Cento runs on whim, and whim doesn’t stop at the kitchen door. A raw bar sprouted up next door, cool, sure, but not the thing that pulled you in. And just like a lover who can’t resist glancing at the girl across the room, you start to wonder if their attention is already elsewhere.

That’s the catch. Chasing sparks makes Cento exhilarating, but it also makes you wonder how long you can hold its gaze. Which is why Cento will always be a F***: magnetic, reckless, impossible to forget, and gone the moment you think about taking it home.

Chuck: Met Him at a Bar

Met Him at a Bar isn’t just a pasta joint, it’s part of a growing block takeover. The same duo behind Met Her at a Bar and Her Thai have been planting flags up and down La Brea, corner by corner. Whispers of Little Bar’s fate float through the neighborhood, the kind of thing you can’t ignore once you hear it. Suddenly, dinner feels less like a meal and more like a real estate play.

And here’s the thing: Mid-Wilshire doesn’t need training-wheels food. We’ve proven we can handle a ten-page Japanese menu at Sake House down the street without blinking. We don’t need the “lite” version, and we certainly don’t need our whole corner swapped out for interchangeable, Instagram-ready concepts. The neighborhood knows the difference, and we’re not afraid of a little spice or complexity.

Which brings us back to the pasta. Met Him is fine, sometimes good, but in a city where Osteria Mozza, Bestia, and Donna’s are setting the bar, fine doesn’t cut it. The rigatoni shows up al dente, the tomato sauce has its charms, the wine list is serviceable. But you feel the gap. In the shadow of giants, “solid” reads more like survival than love.

So I’m chucking Met Him at a Bar. Not out of malice, but out of respect for what this neighborhood actually deserves: food that challenges, excites, and doesn’t assume we need our culture watered down. Pasta should sweep you up, not leave you wondering how long until the next takeover.

Marry: Antico Nuovo

There are restaurants you want to show off, and then there are restaurants you want to keep for yourself. Antico is the latter. The dining room is one of the chicest in the city, not loud, not flashy, but composed in a way that makes you sit a little taller just for being there. It’s not a place for the group text; it’s the place you share with the one who matters.

The menu isn’t something you conquer in a night. The only proper way to eat here is to come back again and again, until you’ve let every dish reveal itself. And while there are flourishes, the chef flying his CDC to Italy each year, the pasta program that’s studied like scripture, the truth is the simplest plates are often the most profound. One of the best things I ate all year was a tomato-and-mozzarella salad, humble, direct, stripped of everything but quality and care. That’s the whole thesis: marriage isn’t about grand gestures, it’s about the quiet details done right, night after night.

Because what Antico offers isn’t spectacle, it’s constancy. It’s the restaurant version of waking you up with coffee every morning, cracking your back when you’re sore, that little dance in the kitchen that makes an ordinary Tuesday feel like magic, or the way they remember how you take your wine without asking. Even the kitchen itself mirrors this love: a small team moving in sync, covering for each other, building something together that no one person could pull off alone.

That’s why I marry Antico. Not because it dazzles me into forever, but because it proves forever doesn’t have to be dazzling. It just has to be steady, generous, and still capable of undoing you with a tomato salad that feels like love itself.

So here’s where we landed:

Cento, the messy afternoon hookup you can’t stop thinking about, even when you know they’re texting someone else. Met Him at a Bar, the date your friends swore you’d love, but by dessert you realize they’re more into their business plan than into you. And Antico Nuovo, the partner you don’t parade around, but the one who surprises you with a tomato salad that feels like vows.

Italian food here is never just Italian food. It’s projection, it’s ego, it’s heartbreak, it’s lust in mozzarella drag. Some places you freak, some you ghost, and some you end up building your whole week around without even realizing it.

Until next time: eat recklessly, dump politely, and marry the one that still makes you blush when they bring out the focaccia.