Italian East Meets West at Scopa Italian Roots, Los Angeles ~ Nooschi

With so many great restaurants in LA, Scopa Italian Roots in Venice somehow slipped behind the scenes. Open for nine months now, the absence of a restaurant sign (and purposely done so) makes it is easy to walk or drive by without noticing it at first pass. Scopa relies on word of mouth and feels confident enough to do so.

An upscale Italian eatery, Scopa’s menu might look a bit generic at first glance. The food, however, is anything but. Their dishes carefully blend both bold and subtle tastes, creating layers and layers of flavors to discover. The team behind Scopa are no rookies. Their resume rhymes off places like Black Market in Studio City, Pour Vous in Hollywood, and Harvard & Stone. Their Chef, Antonia Lofaso, has also made multiple appearances on Top Chef. The concept behind Scopa’s Italian food is East meets West. Chef Antonia Lofasa, having grown up in Jersey, combines her Cali influences with her Italian-American upbringing in Jersey.

To give you an idea of how much we enjoyed Scopa, a group of us all went there for brunch one morning, and then went straight back for dinner a few hours later!

They have an extensive drink and wine list, offering pages and pages of cocktails, whiskies, aperitifs and more to choose from.

Here is my force rank of all of the dishes we had with the best dish listed first:

Veal Chop Milanese - "cooks garden" sorrel, dandelion greens, cress
Soft Eggs - Italian sausage, cavolo nero, peppers, onions, polenta
Manila Clams & Uni - toast, parsley, garlic
Scallops Oreganata - garlic, parsley
Chitarra Pasta - pecorino, black pepper
Roast Chicken - creamed polenta, kale, calabrian chilies, shallots
Fresh Oysters
Italian Hero Sandwich - copa, prosciutto, salami, salami, provolone, lettuce, olive oil, vinegar
Prosciutto and Burrata - olive oil, grapes
Italian Chopped Salad - salami, imported provolone, ceci beans, oregano, peperoncini, radicchio, artichoke, red onion, roasted pepper

The first five on the list are must have's! It was incredibly hard having to force rank them, but there you go. The veal chop is only available for dinner and the soft eggs are only available for brunch. Their pasta was a perfect al dente and the simple rich sauce just made it heavenly.