David Myers Update: More Pizza Coming to Hollywood

L. Balla

Sit back and think for a moment -- where's the best artisanal pizza in the heart of Hollywood? And we don't mean Mozza down on Melrose and Highland, but closer to Hollywood and Vine. Right. Well, by this time next year, there will be a version of David Myers' Costa Mesa Italian restaurant, Pizzeria Ortica, smack-dab in the middle of it all.

The Myers Restaurant Group owns the ground floor of the Equitable Building at Hollywood and Vine, which they purchased in 2010 and where Dillon's currently resides, and finally decided which concept to bring to the neighborhood. It's definitely not Sona.

Myers tells us his new pizzeria, with its proper wood-burning oven, will take over the former Vine Street Lounge space on Vine St. Dillons Irish Pub & Grill will continue to do business as usual. "The whole thing was really dependent on if we could do the oven or not," says Myers. "If we couldn't, we weren't going to do pizza, not that concept."

The still unnamed spot (it may be called Pizzeria Ortica, it may not) will be mostly pizza, with some antipasti and handmade pastas. As with the original, the pizza will have that same blistery crust and toppings will be farmers market driven; the chef and his team are particularly pumped to raid the Hollywood Farmers Market every Sunday.

Ortica's executive chef Justin Miller and sous chef George Horvath will be heading up the operation. "We're even planning a trip to Italy to explore Naples a bit," says Myers. "We're all so enamored by pizza we just want to keep learning."

The designer hasn't been picked yet, but Myers says they're down to the final selection. He does know that since the building is historic, it will combine some sort of classic Hollywood feel with a contemporary look.

As for an opening, he says spring 2012 is a good conservative timeline: "We were hoping to open by the end of this year, but we got caught up in stuff."