Rossoblu

On our list of the best special-occasion restaurants in Los Angeles.

Steve Samson built this Downtown restaurant around his summers in Emilia-Romagna, naming it for the nickname of Bologna's soccer club and pulling pasta by hand with a traditional rolling pin in a glass-walled pasta room. A wood-burning hearth fired by oak coals, a nod to his grandfather, roasts meats including house-made sausages, and a colorful mural by the street art collective CYRCLE runs the length of one wall in the industrial space. Downstairs, a private dining room called the Butcher Box lets a small group watch those meats get prepared.