Pizzeria Mozza

Yes, I am raving about Pizzeria Mozza by showing desserts! My Chocolate Monkey tea friend (see December's Village Pantry post) was in town, and she said to pick the place for dinner. One of my work friends gushed about Pizzeria Mozza, and it sounded like the perfectly yummy place for the latest round of girly catch-up.

Pizzeria Mozza is the more casual space of the Mozza restaurants on the corner of Melrose and Highland. (The connected Osteria Mozza seems the fancier-schmancier side of the Nancy Silverton-Mario Batali food partnership.) There's a big pizza oven with adjoining "pizza bar" to watch the food being made. The tables are almost on top of the other, which made for some fun conversations and recommendations with adjacent dinners.

Finally, the food. I had heard the fennel sausage was the way to go. There were two versions, so we each ordered one. Mine was nicknamed "meat lovers" due to the bacon, salame, guanciale (which was more bacon!) and fennel sausage. YUM! And if that wasn't enough meat, we started with their awesome roasted Brussels sprouts with proscuitto and breadcrumbs.

And if my pants weren't sausage-casing tight enough, we went with the dessert tasting pictured above. We were able to limit it to these three: lime torta with blueberries, blood orange gelato with crispy wafer, and butterscotch budino (pudding) with a tease of sea salt to zing the sweet. I polished off the pudding, while my friend favored the torta. The gelato was a superb transition between samplings.

So now I'm gushing about Pizzeria Mozza to all my friends! Be sure to make a reservation, or it could be a long wait.

Click here to go to Pizzeria Mozza's Web site.