Food & Restaurants

October 25, 2018

As regards Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, the Los Angeles restaurant scene has undergone, in the last two decades, nothing short of a revolution. The number of Italian restaurants has mushroomed, especially in the past five years, and the influence of Italian cuisine on California cuisine, in general, has been so profound that some foods have lost their Italian uniqueness to enter mainstream food habits. We are undergoing presently an extreme case of multiplication, resulting in complex restaurant geneaologies: as Italian waiters are playing musical chairs, chefs leave restaurants to open their own (e.g., Gino Angelini, chef who launched Vincenti, and is now owner of Angelini Osteria; the chef behind Angelini Osteria, opens his own La Terza, etc.), and restaurateur dynasties appear. A successful restaurant spawns a more casual locale, wine bars, or cafès, thereby providing a full line of eating establishments under one banner (e.g., Celestino Drago and the Drago restaurant dynasty in the area, See: NOTABLE CHEFS; Locanda Veneta opens Café Veneto, and so forth). Italian food is strong and shows no sign of waning (search the Los Angeles Times database with keyword “Italian” and “California” and more than 3/4 of the 1,200 entries will likely relate to food, and the majority of these to restaurant reviews!). California agriculture and farmers’ markets, cheese manufacturers, specialty food and appliance importers, are reflecting these changes. As a result, ingredients that were once rare are now widely available: mozzarella di bufala, espresso coffee, radicchio, finocchio, arugola, fresh pasta, polenta, prosciutto, blood oranges, etc.

In the 1980’s, a typical restaurant pattern was for a group of investors to hire over an Italian chef for the start up phase of an upscale (often Westside) restaurant operation, often touted as “Northern Italian.” An infusion of Italian master chefs came to Los Angeles in this way. They both contributed to a new Italian cuisine for Americans, and helped change established Italian American restaurants to reflect newer Italian foods and trends. Bakeries such as Il Fornaio were, at the same time, redefining the meaning of Italian bread (and pastries) for Angelenos.

Some old guard Italian Americans restaurants (e.g., red and white checkered tablecloths, wicker wine-flasks, etc.) began showing signs of change and renewal as a result of the new Italian food trend. Red sauces typically based on canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and garlic, lightened up, as fresher ingredients and a lighter touch marked Italian food more generally. Often the only remaining cues are aural: the voice of Frank Sinatra, Caruso, Opera (rather than strains of Italian pop music or Andrea Boccelli) as dinner music. We witnessed such a reaction against Italian American restaurants (identified predominantly with southern-Italian-based cuisines) that even mozzarella-in-carrozza might be labeled as ‘fine “Northern” cuisine.’ Such nonsense was likely designed to lure poorly informed American public to the spare, chic, and more costly establishments. The rapid realignment of affiliations going on fed into the anti-South and anti-immigrant sentiments widespread in Italian culture and shared by non-Italians. Today, the public seems more savvy. Some Post-moderns search out New York-Chicago-, or other old Italian American restaurants consciously, while at the same time beginning to understand the differences between Italian regional cuisines. Today, Italian restaurants are further enriching the range of foods understood as Italian and to prominently name regional food traditions that are Sicilian, Venetian, Roman, Piedmontese, Neapolitan, and so forth. Regionalism is definitely on the rise. Yet at times, this “new” Italian cuisine sometimes overlays a stratum of older Italian American cuisine.

A survey of Italians in all phases of the food industry: from wineries and food producers, food distributors and importers, to markets, delis, cooks, and restaurateurs would reveal the long presence of Italians in this sector, yet awaits the historians’ attention.…

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Performing Arts

April 24, 2016

“The Italian Film Commission (IFC) is a division of the Italian Trade Commission (ITC) and operates as the promotional office for the Italian Entertainment Industry. The Italian Film Commission provides information and assistance to the American audiovisual industry by showcasing, promoting and assisting with Italian locations, facilities, and Italian crews above and below the line. The Italian Film Commission in 1998 became part of AFCI, the Association of Film Commissions International.” The IFC organizes events, seminars, screenings, and participates in entertainment trade shows. It publishes a national production guide (consultable on its Web site), provides marketing research, and sponsors industry-related events. It functions as a liaison between the Italian film community, its services, products, and the U.S. industry.

Los Angeles, entertainment capital of the world, could not help but attract Italian (-and other) actors, set designers, producers, directors, and photographers from its earliest industry days to the present. There is a long history of Italians in “Hollywood,” they are here today, and too numerous to list. They are both Italian and Italian American.

Efforts to promote Italian film in Los Angeles have increased in recent years, making this a high priority with the Italian Cultural Institute (Istituto Italiano di Cultura)óespecially under the ex-directorship of Guido Fink, professor of cinema at the University of Florence, Italy. You can see current Italian films in the Sala Rossellini of the IIC (see their monthly calendar online, or sign up to receive e-mail announcements). Further, LAIFA promotes Italian and Italian American film in America. Several Italian media maintain corresponding journalists in Los Angeles as well (See: MEDIA, Italian Journalists in Los Angeles). Here follows a very limited list of current Italians in film and TV:

Actors: Dom Deluise, Joe Mantegna, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, Frank Agrama, Rose Colosanti,

Directors: Carlo Carlei, Bernard Hiller, Andrea Barzini, Marco Brambilla, Michael Cimino

Filmmakers: Teo Ruspoli, Paolo Borraccetti, Evelina Luongo, Luigia Martelloni

Agents: Paul Attanasio

Costume Designer: Milena Canonero

Producers: Dino De Laurentiis, Donald P. Bellisario, Doug De Luca

Production: Grazia Caroselli

Photography: Dante Spinotti, Kim Canazzi…

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Italian Architectural Evocations in Los Angeles

February 21, 2016

By Edward F. Tuttle. All rights reserved. (See: EDUCATION, University Italian Studies, Graduate (M.A., Ph.D.), UCLA)
Italian-derived architecture in the Los Angeles area can be attributed to the broad enthusiasm for Mediterranean culture that still inspired the educated and well-to-do a century ago. As had Jefferson at Monticello, so too did the scions of Victorian Industry continue to dream of Italy. The McCormickís (=International Harvester), even employed a score of Italian masons for decades on their Riven Rock Estate. Boosters were convinced that coastal California would become Americaís Riviera, truly Our Italy, as Charles D. Warner entitled his 1891 enticing descriptions. While few evocations of Italy may quite rival Abbot Kinney’s 1904 Venetian folly (see: ART & ARCHITECTURE, Points of Special Interest: Venice Beach, CA), in capillary fashion domestic builders made much use of the loggia and the porticoóamenities as expressive of this mild Mediterranean place as the olive and the vine. Recall, too, that longstanding admiration for Italy converged seamlessly with the simultaneous resuscitation of the Hispanic Missions. Ramona (1884) was born of Helen Hunt Jackson’s collaboration with Abbot Kinney to ascertain the sorry state of the Franciscan Missions and their Native American converts. A kindred New England transplant, Charles Lummis, Los Angelesí librarian, launched the Landmark Club to save, most conspicuously, the Missions (circa 1895). The lovingly restored Missions stood as exemplars for many a mundane building (from train stationsósignally those of the Southern Pacific and the Santa Feóto schools and libraries, to markets and even Protestant churches). The common Roman ancestry of the arch and the column fostered a Mediterranean symbiosis, which proved prolific well on through the 1930ís. For ex., only an architectural historian rambling through, say, Palos Verdes (name coined 1932) can alert us that Wallace Neff’s villas are often “more Italian than Spanish,” or that the Gard House (Cutter) was “to be read as Spanish, but, in truth, many of its architectural details came from rural villas in Tuscany,” just as the Schoolcraft House (Cline) is “a rural Tuscan villa with extensive tilework, windows and doors brought from Italy” (R. Winter & D. Gebhard, An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, revised ed. 2003, pp. 85-86). The porticoed Malaga Cove piazza even has a 2/3 scale Fontana del Nettuno from a 1563 Bolognese original as its centerpiece. Yet just as William Wrigley ordered Avalon “Mediterranean-ized” (ca. 1934 by Otis Shepard) and Santa Barbara’s city fathers crafted a “Mediterranean” building code, Frank Lloyd Wright was deriving ispiration from Mayan excavations, while energetic Mitteleuropean ÈmigrÈ architects were bringing with them International Moderne. Stark flat surfaces, aimed at creating “pure” geometric volumes, rendered Mediterranean Historicism passÈ.

Yet the Wheel of Fashion ever turns: the American Academy still granted Rome Prizes and the Caput Mundi remained seductive. By the early Sixties, two Princetonians, stirred by their Italian sojourns, militated for a return to complexity and Italian allusions. Both Robert Venturi’s radical Historicist recoveries (1966) and Michael Grave’s chromatic evocations restored Italy as architectural inspiration. The affluent 1980’s saw a new, post-modern wave of Californians eagerly (re-)discovering Italian wine, cuisine, and designóupscale, hip, and stylish. This new Italian wave, so conspicuous in the restaurant and design sectors, shows no signs of receding any time soon. Architecturally it is manifest in wide use of materials such as terracotta, marble, and tile, as well as structural recoveries such as arcades (with arches), courtyards, spaces focused around fountains. New sites vaguely reminiscent of Italian urban landscapes are rising (e.g., the hilltop Getty Museum, the grander malls such as the Grove, or the Beverly Hills Connection), while developers once again give Italian names to their creations (e.g., “Palazzo,” and a plethora of “Villas”).…

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Food Associations

January 24, 2016

Slow Food boasts 80,000 members in more than 100 countries, organized into more than 800 local convivia. In Italy there are about 35,000 members and 360 convivia (in Italy known as condotte). In the rest of the world, there are about 450 convivia and the number is continuing to grow. The condotte in Italy and the convivia worldwide are the linchpins of the Slow Food movement and interpret and represent its philosophy at local level. The head of the condotta or convivium is the fiduciary or convivium leader, who, through the members and the central office, organizes food and wine events and initiatives, creates moments of conviviality, raises the profile of products and promotes local artisans and wine cellars. He also organizes tasting courses and Taste Workshops and promulgates new food and wine developments and knowledge of the products and cuisines of other areas. In short, he educates in matters of taste.”
From: “Slow Food: The Movement”: http://www.slowfood.com/eng/sf_ita_mondo/sf_ita_mondo.lasso

The American Institute of Wine & Food
National Headquarters
1303 Jefferson Street, Suite 100-B
Napa, CA 94559
Tel: (800) 274-AIWF (2493)
Fax (707) 255-5547
Jodie Morgan, Executive Director: jmorgan@aiwf.org
Shannon Brown, Director of Chapter Relations: sbrown@aiwf.org

The AIWF and Julia Child.
“In 1981 Julia Child, Robert Mondavi, Richard Graff, and others founded The American Institute of Wine & Food, a non-profit educational organization devoted to improving the appreciation, understanding, and accessibility of food and drink. […] AIWF chapters are the heart and soul of The AIWF. Thought-provoking seminars, unique educational opportunities and festive social gatherings at the local level inspire a lively and comprehensive exchange of information and ideas.”
From “About the AIWF”: http://www.aiwf.org/national/ )

Culinary Historians of Southern California
c/o Los Angeles Public Library
630 W. Fifth St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Tel: (213) 228-7101

“The Culinary Historians of Southern California (CHSC), founded in 1995, is a group of scholars, cooks, food writers, nutritionists, collectors, students, and others interested in the study of culinary history and gastronomy. The group’s purpose is to provide a forum for the discussion of food in society and to support the culinary collections at the Los Angeles Public Library. At regular programs, usually held on the second Saturday of the month at the Central Library, invited speakers share their expertise on topics related to culinary history and gastronomy.” From: http://www.lapl.org/central/science.html…

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Business: Services

July 28, 2015

“Americans in the West” Project included research on San Pedro, conducted by Doug Di Natale and David Taylor, Frank Russell, Paola Tavarelli. Further reading: Old Ties, New Attachments: Italian-American Folklife in the West, edited by David A. Taylor, John Alexander Williams, Library of Congress, 1992.

A Bit of History: Charles Speroni (1911-1984), Professor of Italian at UCLA, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, and perhaps best known for his Italian language reader, with C. Golino, Basic Italian, was one of the first to study Italian folklife in southern California. Among publications in this field, are: Charles Speroni, “California Fishermenís Festivals,” in Western Folklore, 14 (1955) 77-91; and “Observance of St. Joseph’s Day Among the Sicilians of Southern California.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 4.3 (1940): 135-139. University of California obituary, by Giovanni Cecchetti:…

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Community Sites & Meeting Places

March 27, 2014

By far the most frequently used sites by Italians in Los Angeles for social and cultural events are Casa Italiana (in Chinatown) and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura (the Italian Cultural Institute, Westwood). While the first tends to host banquets, Italian associations’ monthly meetings, St. Joseph’s Day Tables (See: CELEBRATION, Folk Festival), patron feast days, and Opera productions, the Westwood institute, the IIC (the Cultural office of the Italian Government abroad) promotes Italian (rather than Italian American) cultural activity and caters to a Westside crowd. The first is generally associated with the established Italian Americans community while the later with a more contemporary Italy-centric cultural milieu.

A Bit of History: The Scalabrini Order and the Italian Community. The Missionaries of St. Charles (Carlo Borromeo, 1538-1584; Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, 1839-1905), known as the Scalabrini Fathers or Scalabrinians (an order, founded in 1887 to serve the needs of immigrants, and today continues to serve migrants and refugees), have provided leadership on many fronts within the Italian community, besides the strictly religious. Since 1972, they have administered St. Peter’s Italian Church, focusing on social and cultural programs, as well as the pastoral. They managed l’Italo-Americano for decades

(See: MEDIA, Publications, Newspapers), organized Italian classes, encouraged traditional patron saint day observances and other traditions. Under the energetic leadership of Father Donanzan, they were, in the 1970s and 1980s, one of the major unifying forces in the local Italian community. The Scalabrinians undertook the rebuilding of Casa Italiana, increased attendance at St. Peter’s Italian Church (the only national parish in the diocese), and built Villa Scalabrini (the retirement center for Italian seniors in Sun Valley; cf. monument to the Italian immigrant). The fundraising campaigns for these projects are remembered as rare occasions of Italians rallying behind a common cause.

(see: INSTITUTIONS, Italian Government Offices)
Churches, St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church in downtown Los Angeles, and Mary Star of the Sea Church, San Pedro, are primary sites for religiously-related events (See: RELIGION; CLUBS & ASSOCIATIONS, Religious Associations). But Casa Italiana also hosts Opera productions, meetings, dinner dances of the various organizations, from the Sons of Italy and the Italian Lawyers Association, to the Federated Italo-Americans of Southern California.

St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church:
Detail of altar, St. Peter (a “fisher of
men”) in a boat
St. Peter’s Church (& Casa Italiana)
1051 N. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tel: 323-225-8119
Fax: 323-225-0085
Donna Angiuli, Administrator

(See: RELIGION: St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church)
Mary Star of the Sea Church
870 8th St.
San Pedro, CA 90731
Tel: (310) 833-3541
Fax: (310) 833-9254
email: office@marystar.org

Recently other centers of social and cultural activity have been gaining prominence. The Historic Italian Hall Foundation (El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument), has recently restored the Italian Hall (historically, the social center of the early Italian community), and continues to work on the project of creating an Italian American Museum in the heart of Los Angeles.

A bequest by George L. Graziadio, with funds from other local organizations, (e.g., Frank De Santis, former OSIA president, see: CLUBS AND ORGANIZATIONS), made possible the endowment of a Chair in Italian Studies at California State University, Long Beach. The Graziadio Center for Italian Studies organizes community events at the University—a rare meeting of town and gown among Italians!

A few Italian organizations have their own meeting places which serve a variety of social and program needs: Orange County American Italian Renaissance Foundation, the Italian American Club of San Pedro, the Garibaldina Society.

A Bit of History: Italian Hall in the Heart of the Pueblo.The official inauguration of the Italian Hall (est. 1907) as the first Italian American Museum in Los Angeles was held during the summer of 2004. Italian Hall, still undergoing repairs and restoration, is now part of the city-owned El Pueblo de Los Angeles in downtown Los Angeles near the art deco train station, Union Station, and next to Olvera Street, a prime tourist destination. See:

The George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies
California State University, Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90840-2406
Tel: (562) 985-4111
Fax: 562-985-2406

Historic Italian Hall in El Pueblo
Italian Hall
C/o Historic Italian Hall Foundation
(El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument)
125 Paseo de la Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tel: 323-257-9400
Fax: 323-256-1383
Nick Costantini President: ndcosta@aol.com

(DVD video of the dedication of Mille Grazie Wall and history of the Historic Italian Hall and Museum, Italian Hall, P.O., Box 92465, Pasadena, CA 91109)

Italian American Club
1903 S. Cabrillo Ave. (at 19th)
San Pedro, CA
Tel: (310) 831-3183

Garibaldina Society
4533 N. Figueroa
Los Angeles, CA

Orange County American Italian Renaissance Foundation
1950 Old Tustin Ave.
Santa Ana, CA 92705
Tel: (714) 836-4655
Fax: (714) 550-9234…

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Institutions

February 28, 2014

Italians and Italian Americans. Amid this diversity of Italians, a self-selection process naturally occurs. Indeed a genuine gulf exists between Italian Americans and contemporary Italians—little interested in “folk” or “ethnic” manifestations of tradition. Since the vast majority of the historic Italian American community has rural and small town roots, however, traditional forms of folklife are the patrimony, whether acknowledged, remembered, or not, of this group. The historic community of Italians (now of second or third generation) who do form into associations, tend to make the preservation of cultural heritage and the celebration of town and regional festivities, a priority (See: CLUBS & ASSOCIATIONS). Post-economic boom Italians (1960s-) instead have a markedly different experience of Italian history and culture and have more often arrived as middle class professionals. Increasing economic parity and various other factors (e.g., shared work and educational milieux, recent experiences of Italian travel among older immigrants) have however helped blur such boundaries in recent years. Further, various aspects of Italian folk culture (festivals, foods, customs—but those associated with Italy rather than with Italians in America) have acquired renewed interest for descendents of the older as well as newer Italians. For instance, Italian traditional music collected in the field from oral tradition (See: PERFORMING ARTS, Traditional Music)—although little known—is showing greater appeal for young descendants of immigrants rediscovering their cultural roots, than is the “folk music” typical of Italian American (e.g., staged red, white and green, tambourine-shaking, “generic” tarantella dancers) festivals and other heritage events. …

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