8 1/2 Taverna in Studio City serves pizza worth your dough

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You have to know tradition to break with it. Which is why Fabrizio Di Gianni and Enzo Sanseverino, two old-world Italians full of New World bravado, are turning out such deliciously rebellious food at their new restaurant, 8 1/2 Taverna in Studio City. Angus beef and foie gras burger, anyone?

Born and raised in Turin and Naples, respectively, Di Gianni, 35, and Sanseverino, 34, met in Los Angeles and bonded over a passion for cooking. Di Gianni revered his grandmother’s hearth and her intricate sauces, while Sanseverino began serving coffee and pastries at age 10 and entered culinary school at 15.

‘At 13, Enzo started working as a pastry chef, and he ate a lot of pizza,’ Di Gianni says of his friend’s formative years in Naples. Later, he met an American woman, fell in love and moved to Los Angeles, working in the kitchens of various Japanese and Italian restaurants, including a stint as pizza chef at Angelino Pizzeria.

To read the rest of Jessica Gelt’s story, click here.