Piccolo

Très bonne cuisine. Carte variée. Gastronomie Italienne de bonne qualité.
Somme toute un peu cher, surtout les vins.

Piccolo on Venice is fantastic. I believe it to be amongst the best Italian food I’ve had in LA, rivaling many places I went to Italy in taste, though not in dollar value, hence my hesitation to jump to 5 stars.
From what I saw, most (if not all) of the staff is Italian, including the store owner and chef. This brings a flair of authenticity that most Italian restaurants in the US have trouble attaining. The interior is classy and old-​worldy, harkening back to some of the hole-​in-​the-​wall places I enjoyed in Italy. Combine that with its proximity to the ocean (you can see sand and waves from the entrance), and you have one of the swankiest locations to impress a date or punctuate an important event.
They have a regular menu, but everyone in my group opted for the course menu. For a flat $ 40, this gets you: an appetizer, a primo (pasta), and a secondo (entrée), each of which you choose from a selection of three, and lastly, a house dessert. The selections are diverse enough to have something to please all, but portion sizes for each course are… piccolo-​sized. (The pastas are served on Imperial-​sized dishes with fist-​sized basins.) Portion sizes notwithstanding, each dish is delicate and artisanly prepared.
For my course, I selected:
— Chocolate ravioli — Dry and bitter exterior with fresh ricotta and mushroom center. Interesting combination, but I also tried a bite of the Scallop appetizer, and this clearly the winner. I’m usually not huge on scallops, but this was so fresh and buttery that it could pass as lobster.
— House-​made parpadelle with wild boar ragu — This was amazing, and my personal favorite dish of the night. But I wanted more!
— Pork chop with apricot sauce — Succulent and smooth. A very mature tasting dish.
The house-​made desserts included semifreddo, chocolate-​filled pastry puffs, and marscapone cream with mini-​biscotti cookies. Each were small, but packed a rich punch.
Even after several trips to the bread basket, I was still not completely full – but the food preparation was amazing enough to make up for it.
It was so good, in fact, that one of my coworkers fainted and fell completely face first into the pavement just after walking out. In hindsight, this is probably due to all the wine, but nevertheless, the staff was kind enough to come out and help him up.
And just to give you an idea of how classy they are: their dress code prohibits anything from being «worn backwards». So hopefully that won’t ruin your day.