Elizabeth Minchilli

Taverna dei Fori Imperiali, exterior

One of traditional decorating elements in Roman trattorias (besides the red and white checked tablecloths, uncomfortable chairs and over bright lighting) are framed photographs of "celebrity" clients. These can often date back decades and whether or not you recognize the face in the frame, it's kind of fun to see the pride that some of these restaurants display in the fact that a B level soccer player or a politician from a long-failed government stopped by in 1978, funky side burns and all.

Here in Rome, our local is no different. Taverna dei Fori Imperiali gladly started framing snapshots of "famous" clients from the get go. There's the American astronaut. And the quarterback from the Pittsburgh Steelers. Photos that took obscure noteriety, at least to many of the regulars, to new levels.

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Sotto Restaurant

Chickpea panelle at Sotto

The sensibility of Zach Pollack and Steve Samson's Pico-Robertson restaurant Sotto is clearly laid out on their menu. Take the appetizer of chickpea panelle, a traditional Sicilian street food, which has been available at the Southern Italian restaurant since it was opened in 2011.

"They're basically chickpea fritters. They're really easy to make, but they're also really easy to screw up. It's one of those things that you have to have patience with. It might not come out as well as you would like the first time, but you'll get it if you keep trying," Samson says.

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Garrett Snyder

Sandwiches at Roma Italian Deli

On May 28, the FDA will lift the USDA ban on imported Italian cured pork products. This means we'll finally get to enjoy artisanal salami from parts of Italy like Emilia-Romagna and Piedmonte. Although according to The New York Times, it remains to be seen how much will be made available to us, given the cost of certification (upwards of $100,000).

Still the sentiment seems to be that we'll be saved from bad meat. While we wait to see how this will affect Italian delis, restaurants and purveyors in the long run, we're standing by some of our favorites for made-to-order Italian American cold cut sandwiches. Turn the page for our 6 favorites, listed in alphabetical order.

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A. Scattergood

Porchetta at Barbrix

Porchetta, as we recently discovered, is having its moment in Los Angeles. Or maybe it's having another moment, as the glorious Italian ode to pig is hardly a recent discovery. The roasted pork dish had been gracing Italian menus, Italian food trucks and rustic Italian kitchens for a long time before it hit the restaurant scene in L.A. And of course chefs here have been cooking the stuff for years. Don Dickman has been making porchetta for over a decade, at his now-shuttered Santa Monica restaurant Rocca since it opened in 2003, and at Barbrix, which debuted in Silver Lake four years ago.

Dickman's porchetta, he recently told us in Barbrix's tiny open kitchen, is easily adapted for the home cook -- not least because it is not made with a whole pig, suckling or otherwise. (Although he did make the dish with a 100-lb. pig at Rocca.) These days, Dickman uses a Niman Ranch pork shoulder, which he seasons, ties, covers, then puts into an oven for about four hours. That's more or less it. There are a couple tricks -- not because porchetta is a tricky dish, but because there are always tricks to the best dishes -- most of which involve fennel pollen. Find it, buy it, use it, and do so very liberally. That's about it for tricks. "The simpler it is," says Dickman, who has logged many hours as a culinary instructor, "the more likely you are to cook it."

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Anne Fishbein

Housemade pappardelle with rabbit ragu, taggiasche olives and cherry tomatoes at Vincenti

Our 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants issue came out last week, and we're highlighting a few categories drawing from the list. Today: Italian restaurants.

This isn't every single Italian or Italian-influenced spot on the list, so make sure you check out the whole thing, but here are five of our favorites to get you started.

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Phaidon

Sicily Cookbook

The upside of the current trend of hyper-localized cookbooks: You can go to Sicily over the weekend without leaving your kitchen. The latest from Phaidon, Sicily: A Culinary Journey through Sicilian Cuisine, due on stands in about a month, is a compilation of fifty traditional recipes from the editors behind The Silver Spoon cookbook.

This is not a packed, straightforward recipe compendium like The Silver Spoon. Think of it as more of a travelogue, albeit one peppered with 50 recipes and intimate shots of chickpeas and garlic drying in the Palermo sun. The font is noticeably larger type than other recent Phaidon publications -- we have a short recipe attention span these days. Even the Introduction opens with plenty of contemporary cuisine buzzwords like local, foraged and fusion (here, meaning layers of flavor added to dishes from different cultures gradually over the centuries). It's certainly accurate, as historically cuisines relied on those principles we idolize today simply as a matter of necessity.

In other words, if you're looking to delve into a Gran Cocina Latina-type extensive exploration of Sicilian cuisine, this isn't the book for you. Looking for a traditional Sicilian coffee granita that you might make for years to come, no trend du jour bells and whistles? Get more on the book, and the granita recipe, after the jump.

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Clarkson Potter

Nigellissima

British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson's latest cookbook, Nigellissima, focuses on Easy, Italian-Inspired Recipes per the subtitle and BBC series by the same name. Nigellissima promises to be, in essence, the "shortcut sausage meatballs" to modern Italian domestic bliss. How to be a Domestic Goddess, Italian-style: Green beans with pistachio pesto, mascarpone whipped potatoes, "tiramisini" (get the recipe after the jump). You get the idea.

Noticeably different from previous books is the subtle change to chapter titles. It wasn't so long ago that "Party Girl" and "Trashy" chapters were trending in Lawson's cookbook nomenclature (Nigella Bites ); in Nigellissima, the chapters largely follow the more straightforward (read: not rooted in television promotion) model: "Pasta" and "Vegetables and Sides" are among the purely descriptive chapter titles. But flip past that "authentic Italian" table of contents, and the book is pure Lawson.

In other words, whether this cookbook will be at home on your shelves isn't so much about the recipes, but how you feel about the quality of food celebrities today.

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Courtesy RivaBella

The lasagna at RivaBella

RivaBella, a collaboration between Gino Angelini and Innovative Dining Group, opens its doors today for dinner in West Hollywood in the former Hamburger Hamlet location on Sunset Boulevard. Angelini is the chef behind the celebrated and fairly intimate Italian restaurant Angelini Osteria, and Innovative Dining Group is behind flashy, often nightlife-driven restaurants like Sushi Roku and Soleto.

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Flickr/basykes

A Bertolli pasta dish

It used to be easy to shower celebrities with lavish gifts. Back in the good old days, companies put together gift baskets worth tens of thousands of dollars that they gave to presenters and other celebrities attending awards shows such as the Oscars and Emmys.

Then those spoilsport Feds decided that the gift baskets could be construed as taxable income, forcing celebrity gifting underground. So-called "gifting suites" popped up at high-end Beverly Hills hotels and other secret locations, where celebs (or their handlers) could pick up fancy items, and it was difficult for the IRS to track who had gone where and accepted what.

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Sam Kane

Chef T.J. Tramonto teaching a class

Looking to improve your cooking technique, or maybe just to have a fun night out while fine-tuning your eating skills? Then grab your toque and set your GPS for Thousand Oaks, where 20 cooking classes are being offered by the Community Enrichment Department, part of the Conejo Valley Adult School.

"We're offering more cooking classes now than we used to," says Christina Alwood, coordinator of the enrichment program. "They are becoming more popular all the time. Our instructors are so outstanding and they get a reputation. They gain a following."

Taught by area food experts, including chefs, caterers and cookbook authors, the classes cover a wide range of topics, from seasonal cooking and baking, to learning how to preserve and can foods. Alwood says among student favorites are three classes that focus on using Trader Joe's products to create new dishes.

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