Early Bird: Osteria Mamma is authentically Italian

By now, everybody who's ever frequented Osteria La Buca knows that the partners split recently and that Filippo Cortivo left the restaurant, taking with him his Mamma, Loredana, who made the osteria a neighborhood favorite for her handmade fresh pasta dishes. Now the two have opened their own place just blocks west of La Buca on Melrose Avenue, close to Larchmont. The corner space is drenched with light at lunch and is dark and subdued at night.

Most nights Mamma, who was quite the vamp in her youth, if the photos on the back wall are any evidence, is in the kitchen. Waiters are authentically Italian and so, spare as the décor is, Osteria Mamma feels like a neighborhood osteria somewhere in the back streets of Padua or any other similar-sized city in northern Italy.

Read more from Times restaurant S. Irene Virbila here.

Photo: Osteria Mamma owner Filippo Cortivo and his beloved Mamma, Loredana Cecchinato in the kitchen. Credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times