Vittorios Ristorante & Pizzeria

16646 Marquez Avenue
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
310-459-9316
vittoriosla.com

By MERV HECHT | Restaurant Critic

Any restaurant that’s been around for decades and gets generally great reviews (with some exceptions, usually on the prices or the service) must have something special about it. Vittorios Ristorante & Pizzeria is a plain decor local restaurant serving southern Italian style food. One very popular item is the free garlic knots. It does a big business on pizza on-site and takeout.

The best dishes I’ve had there have been the seafood stew and the fried calamari. The seafood stew is a very generous helping of shellfish in a very tasty broth. You won’t go away hungry if you order that. The fried calamari are not overcooked, as is so often the case, and are seasoned just right.

It’s hard to qualify prices these days because everyone is raising them. At Vittorios the last time I was there a nicely prepared whitefish was $32, a good steak $35 and various pasta dishes were $20 to $26. I think some customers think those are high prices because they see the plain decor and the neighborhood location. But the food is superior and the appearance is misleading. The wine list is nothing special but adequate.

The owner is often on site, and there is usually street parking, since the location is far from the busy downtown—another plus.

With so many Italian restaurants in the Palisades, several of my friends name Vittorios as their favorite Italian restaurant, so on that basis alone, I recommend it.

Merv Hecht, like many Harvard Law School graduates, went into the wine business after law. In 1988, he began writing restaurant reviews and books. His latest book, “The Instant Wine Connoisseur, 3d edition,” is available on Amazon. He currently works for several companies that source and distribute food and wine products internationally. Send comments to mervynhecht@yahoo.com.