Mozza

We went to Pizzeria Mozza last night for dinner with our friends Jason and Erin. Mozza is a restaurant in LA owned and operated by Mario Batali (Food Network, Babbo, Lupa, etc) and Nancy Silverton (La Brea Bakery, Campanile). We have all eaten separately at Babbo and Lupa in New York and so we were excited to go to a Batali restaurant together right here in SoCal. I blogged about this place in January here. It was cool because Nancy Silverton was actually there prepping food to be served and talking with people in the dining room. I saw her air kissing people she knew. So hollywood.

I loved this place. The ambiance is fun, loud, and crowded. It's definitely not a quiet meal and it's not super comfortable. It is a major hotspot. Scarlett Johansson and two friends were sitting at the table next to us and were trying to leave when we left and there was a paparazzi trying to take pictures of her outside and she was trying to hide out and escape. It was fun to watch. I joked that I always had a hard time with the paparazzi and then told the guy he could take my picture and he did. It was hilarious. Paul Reiser was also there and a couple others we thought we recognized.

The food was awesome. We started with an incredible Winter Caprese which was a buttery bufala mozzarella with pesto and chopped basil with roasted cherry-like tomatoes on the vine. Then we had this white bean and garlic bruschetta which was delicious. There's a picture of it below. Next was a salumi platter (prosciutto di parma, salami, sopressata, and speck) with this bread that I can't even describe in words. It was a thick slice of piping hot toasty bread that was soft inside and crunchy outside that had one of the best olive oils drizzled all over it with a good amount of sea salt that made the flavors pop in your mouth. That bread was potentially my favorite item.

We shared four pizzas. The first was goat cheese, bacon, and roasted garlic. The second was guanciale (pig jowl), radicchio, mozzarella, and an egg cracked on top. Picture below. The bummer was that one also had some weird anchovy paste that I did NOT LIKE. The third was fennel sausage, panna cheese, and sweet red onion. The fourth was a bianco pizza with four different amazing cheeses. One cheese had truffles in it. It also had crispy whole sage leaves on it that I could have eaten like chips.

For dessert we had their butterscotch pudding which had chunks of sea salt on top that were one of the most delicious combinations I have ever tasted in a dessert. We also shared a cassis sorbet, a blood orange sorbet, espresso gelato, stracciatella gelato, and banana gelato.

It was a fun night with lots of good food, good conversation, and fun celebrity sightings. The perfect night up in the city.

Here are some pictures from the Times article that were actual items we ate.