Had a BLAST working the floor at Sotto in Los Angeles last night. We still have some kinks to iron out in our newly minted wine program but folks were digging my all-Southern Italian list with a sprinkling of Natural California wines (the Donkey & Goat Sluicebox really wowed a very glammed-out Hollywood four-top). And I am SO GRATEFUL to all my friends who came out to support me and the new restaurant. THANK YOU!

The wine that really blew me away last night (when I finally got to sit down for dinner), however, was not a wine on my list but a wine brought in by my good friend Schachter (Sotto has a very reasonable corkage fee, btw): 2002 Terra di Lavoro (!!!!!). Man, I rarely get to taste this hard-to-find wine from the Terra di Lavoro in Campania, one of the greatest expressions of Aglianico IMHO (here’s the fact sheet). This wine was all earth and mushrooms, black fruit and cinnamon and eastern spices. Fan-friggin-tastic wine… (Thanks again, Schachter!)

I was also entirely geeked to finally get to try the pizza at Sotto. I had the house-cured guanciale, shaved scallions, and fennel pollen. It was excellent: the dough was baked perfectly Neapolitan style (soggy in the middle, the way Tracie P and I like it).

That’s chef and pizzaiolo Zach Pollack with the Mesquite-fired Neapolitan pizza oven in the background. Zach pretty much rocked my world last night with his pizza. Awesome stuff…

Thanks, again, to everyone who came out to support me last night. I’ll be there again tonight. Hope to see you!