Italian food in Los Angeles is having a moment. A city that once offered only Americanized versions of gooey chicken parm and supersize meatballs now boasts an array of both high-end and casual dining options that honor Italy’s diverse regions — with dishes from authentic Roman pasta to Neapolitan pizza. Last year alone brought an abundance of top-ranking Italian newcomers, and Giada De Laurentiis has an inkling as to why.
“I think that Italian food is sexy,” says the Daytime Emmy-winning television host and New York Times bestselling cookbook author, who was born in Rome and built an empire by imparting her native cuisine to aspiring home cooks.
One of the Food Network’s most recognizable faces for 21 years before announcing her departure in February, the cooking show pioneer has entered the kitchens of millions and taught simple ways to make Italian classics, all with a megawatt smile. A mogul in her own right, she recently revived her catering business servicing Southern California, launched her own pasta line on her lifestyle and e-commerce site Giadzy.com and is preparing to open two new restaurants in 2024 at Arizona’s Caesars Republic Scottsdale. In times of pandemic and war, fear and uncertainty, demand for this brand of comfort food is greater than ever.
“It makes you feel sexy, but it’s also indulgent,” De Laurentiis continues. “I think it brings out feelings: passion, romance, all those things that Italy has. People feel so good when they’re around it. It’s incredibly inviting.” Looking both casual and accessible, and at the same time glamorous and glowing, she has also essentially just described herself.
De Laurentiis accessorizes her Dolce & Gabbana outfit with a delectable-looking tomato necklace.
(Photo by Corina Marie)Credit: (Photo by Corina Marie)
De Laurentiis began cooking, from a “very, very early age,” alongside her grandfather, Dino De Laurentiis — a film producer renowned for bringing Italian cinema to the masses at the end of World War II, and who produced 38 Oscar-nominated movies. “I was always the grandchild who would spend time in the kitchen with him and make pizza dough with him, and he used to make me this fresh ricotta with sugar and cocoa powder on top as my dessert,” she recalls. Her dreams of a culinary career started to take shape at age 12, when her grandfather opened a food emporium, DDL Foodshow.
“Food in America in the late ’70s and ’80s, it was like TV dinners — a lot of convenience packaged food,” she says, calling the epicurean scene in Los Angeles minimal at best. “Not much Italian food. Definitely no Italian ingredients in grocery stores. My parents imported everything. There was no prosciutto; no Parmesan; no ricotta.”
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January cover star Giada De Laurentiis
(Photo by Corina Marie)Credit: (Photo by Corina Marie)
A predecessor to Eataly, DDL Foodshow changed that. The marketplace, which sold imported Italian delicacies and housed restaurants, debuted in the 1980s to eager crowds in New York and Los Angeles. “The [DDL] in Beverly Hills, I used to go to after school,” De Laurentiis says. “And to me, the aromas and seeing all the food and the food stalls and all of his friends, and just the excitement on people’s faces when they came through the door, that was like, ‘Oh my God, I want to do something like this. I want to wow people like this.’”
It was a welcome respite for De Laurentiis, who at 7 years old, moved with her family from Italy to New York and Florida before settling in Los Angeles — first in Brentwood and then Beverly Hills. “Awful” is how she describes her experience attending Kenter Canyon elementary charter, Merrimack Junior High School (now the Brentwood School) and Bel Air’s Marymount High School. “In the late ’70s, unlike today, it wasn’t cool to have a different name,” she says. “It wasn’t cool to eat different foods, or to speak a different language. And so, you get bullied a lot. Kids are tough. That was rough.”
Being the child of immigrants, she faced an age-old dilemma at home. “My parents were like, ‘No, we’re not speaking English at home. We’re speaking Italian, and you are going to eat Italian food and you’re going to take Italian food for lunch at school.’” She wasn’t permitted to go on many playdates or sleepovers because she was the eldest girl of four children — and because of the immigrant tendency to maintain insular, tightknit family units for fear the kids would lose tradition. “I probably wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that, for those strict rules,” De Laurentiis confesses. “And I definitely keep it in mind when raising my daughter [Jade, 15], now. But I think I found my place and my strength cooking. I found that I really liked who I was in the kitchen and I really enjoyed that.”
De Laurentiis makes pasta while wearing a Carolina Herrera gown, Salvatore Ferragamo shoes and a Lisa Colpo pearl necklace while being photographed on location at Terranea Resort, inside the restaurant mar’sel.
(Photo by Corina Marie)Credit: (Photo by Corina Marie)
Because she wasn’t around other children, De Laurentiis — whose mother and maternal grandmother were actresses — didn’t realize how unique her family’s ties to the film business were. “I thought that’s what everybody did!” she says. “My birthday parties were always screenings at my grandfather’s house, and then parties. Everything [revolved] around Italian culture and going to movie sets.”
Still, the expectations for Italian women to have careers back then were low — “You dabble when you’re young, and then you get married and have kids,” says De Laurentiis, who’s 53 — and she’s the first in her family to go to college. After studying food anthropology at UCLA, her interest in “the reason why people cook the way they do” inspired her to go to culinary school at Paris’ prestigious Le Cordon Bleu.
When she returned to L.A., she started working for different chefs — including Spago’s Wolfgang Puck, from whom she learned “to be a showman, and to work those tables and take those pictures and talk to people.”
“Wolfgang Puck was able to turn his restaurants into a giant conglomerate of catering,” says De Laurentiis, who upon realizing the restaurant life wasn’t for her, launched a catering business and also began assisting as a food stylist on photo shoots for culinary magazines. Right after 9/11, a creative director she’d befriended at Food & Wine magazine wanted to feature her family in a story on home cooks. “My grandfather [had gotten] a lifetime achievement award that year, and I got my family together for a De Laurentiis brunch at his house,” she says. “I cooked all the food, I wrote all the recipes, and that’s when Food Network came, after that magazine was published.”
Los Angeles magazine Publisher and President Christopher Gialanella plays host to Giada De Laurentiis at mar’sel restaurant at the Terranea Resort
(Photo by Corina Marie)Credit: (Photo by Corina Marie)
De Laurentiis wasn’t immediately receptive when Food Network approached her. “They hounded me for six months to put myself on tape,” she says, recalling it was the dawn of the cable TV revolution, when networks like CNN and MTV pioneered 24/7 programming focused on a single subject. “The idea of ‘cooking all the time’ was so foreign, and especially for my family, because we were in the movie business and there was such a stigma of television,” she says. “It’s not that way anymore. But it was then, and so my grandfather was like, ‘What?’ Worried that somehow, I would tarnish the reputation that he had built. So I think that’s why I pushed it off, and also, I was very shy.” Eventually, her brother, Dino — who died in 2003 after battling melanoma, but also worked in the movie business — shot a demo reel and edited it for her. “I handed it in and that’s how Everyday Italian started.”
Through the show, which premiered in 2003, De Laurentiis taught simplified versions of the food she grew up eating and strove to show a different side of the cuisine. “I think the preconceived notion of Italian food is that, first of all, it’s big portions,” she says. “And also that Italian food is just pasta and pizza. And if you go to Venice, you’re going to get the same pizza that you’re going to get in Naples. Nobody realized that Italy is incredibly regional.”
De Laurentiis believes the show resonated because of its anecdotal nature — “I like to tell a lot of stories, because that’s how my culture has been passed down to me,” she notes — along with her friendly, nondictatorial approach. “Because I wasn’t super confident, I spoke to people in a way where it was like, ‘We’re in this together. You’re at the beginning of this journey of learning about food television, and I’m at the beginning of it too.’”
De Laurentiis quickly became one of the Food Network’s top stars, and over the next 21 years, she hosted the series Giada’s Weekend Getaways, Giada in Paradise, Giada at Home, Giada in Italy, Giada’s Holiday Handbook, Giada Entertains and Giada on the Beach. She’s won three Daytime Emmys, contributes to NBC’s Today show and served as a judge on Food Network Star and as the host of Winner Cake All.
She’s found similar success in the publishing world, authoring 10 New York Times bestselling cookbooks — as well as a children’s book series — for fans looking to make her signature dishes. “Lemon spaghetti became my hallmark,” she says, calling out other favorites like lemon ricotta cookies (her nonna’s recipe), chicken piccata and simple Bolognese. “A lot of these recipes are things people know, but I have streamlined them so that a busy mom can make them on a weekday, and I think that’s the key to my cooking,” she says. “It’s also a little bit lighter — has more California infused into it.”
the Terranea Resort.“>De Laurentiis looks far from cheesy in a vintage Moschino dress paired with Dolce & Gabbana earrings while dining at the Terranea Resort.
(Photo by Corina Marie)Credit: (Photo by Corina Marie)
When De Laurentiis puts her name on a restaurant, it brings her essence to the establishment: welcoming and with the feel of stepping into her home. She became one of the first women to have a restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip (and was Caesars Entertainment’s debut female celebrity chef there) when she opened Giada at the Cromwell hotel in 2014. A popular reservation even a decade later, De Laurentiis credits “taking the intimidation out, where the bar is not the first thing you see — you see food and a pizza oven.”
She followed it up in 2018 with a more casual grab-and-go concept, Pronto by Giada at Caesars Palace, and in the first quarter of 2024, she debuts an outpost of Pronto at Caesars Republic Scottsdale, as well as high-end concept Luna — which, like Vegas’ Giada, will feature her Italian staples and decorative family portraits.
De Laurentiis doesn’t aspire to open a restaurant in Los Angeles, due in part to the city’s burgeoning culinary scene. “I want to bring my food to people who don’t have it. L.A. has great restaurants and so does New York; they don’t need me in the mix,” she says. But she hopes to reach even more people through the revamped Giada Catering, which offers menus focused on different Italian regions, and Giadzy, the lifestyle and e-commerce platform she launched in 2016.
Whereas fans had limited access to De Laurentiis via the Food Network site, through Giadzy she’s able to directly share recipes, videos and lifestyle content. She also sells imported Italian products — from sauces and olive oils to pasta kits that include all of the ingredients to make her famed dishes like Lemon Spaghetti or Perfect Pomodoro (including the Giadzy Pasta she launched in July, crafted in Southern Italy’s Abruzzo region from locally grown semolina and cut on 100-year-old bronze dies).
Among her “No. 1-selling items” are the tomatoes that, in 2024, are more pervasive and coveted than ever. From the grape or cherry variety to organic heirlooms, the fruit (yes, it’s not a vegetable) is inspiring everything from candles to perfume, and remains the go-to for Italian dishes and beyond.
De Laurentiis relaxing on a bed of her favorite fruit
(Photo by Corina Marie)Credit: (Photo by Corina Marie)
“It’s an ingredient people understand, know and love,” she says. “I think people are looking for something that’s going to differentiate their red sauce from everyone else’s. And there’s a lot of going back to the roots of things: Where does the tomato come from? Where are the best tomatoes? And what makes a tomato so great?”
De Laurentiis likes to cook with small, sweet tomatoes, and her favorites are Datterini (or baby Roma “pear-shaped teardrops”) and Pomodorini (“little circles that come in yellow and red”), which she imports from Italian purveyors and sells on Giadzy in small cans, which have a longer shelf life. “It’s not cheap, but people are willing to pay for things that taste phenomenal,” she says. Regionally, she looks to Puglia (for yellow Pomodorini), Sicily (which produces great tomatoes and olives thanks to its proximity to Mount Etna) and Corbara on the Amalfi Coast. “Because of Mount Vesuvius being there, the soil is incredibly rich with minerals,” she says. “And the sun bakes in the sweetness — it’s a geography thing.”
Whether in Italian food or the high-end Mexican cuisine that she’s also seen surging in popularity, De Laurentiis believes an emphasis on ingredients is at the forefront of what L.A.’s top chefs are doing: “Really [it’s about] paying attention to where you’re getting these ingredients, and how you’re using them, and how best to keep their authenticity in the recipes,” she says. “Evan Funke does an amazing job. He always says, ‘It’s not my food. It’s the [Italian] grandmas’ foods that I learned from; that’s what I brought to this country.’ Chris Bianco mills his own wheat and his own flour for his pizzas. We’re going to be better for it in the long run — we’re going to feel better. And I think consumers are really interested in where these things are sourced and how they’re produced in a way they never were before.”
Funke’s eponymous Beverly Hills pasta atelier is one of L.A.’s hardest reservations, and last year also saw the opening of instant Italian hits including Bianco’s Pane Bianco, Italian-American newcomer Donna’s in Echo Park and fine-dining chef Jason Neroni’s short-lived Best Bet Pizzeria in Culver City — joining some of De Laurentiis’ classic standbys like Downtown’s Bestia and Giorgio Baldi near her Palisades neighborhood. “They’re different levels of Italian food and different philosophies,” she shares, noting the equally important focus on the dining experience. “Food has become theater. Because people don’t want to just go sit down and get a good plate of pasta. They want the feeling, they want the atmosphere, and those restaurants, they’re bringing it.”
The main dining room of chef Evan Funke’s Funke in Beverly Hills
Topping her list is Funke, for both the authentic Italian pastas and the stunning space, replete with impeccable design details, such as the rooftop’s rose quartz bar — in the pink color also prevalent at his Hollywood hot spot Mother Wolf. “It’s insane, the materials he’s used,” says De Laurentiis, of the eatery’s look. “There’s more feminine coming into the restaurant world, which I think was very masculine for a long time.”
The admiration is mutual. “Giada is one of the great ambassadors for Italy in the U.S.,” says Funke. “I think what she’s done to bring the beauty and simplicity of Italian food and culture to American tables is a natural extension of what her grandfather did for Italian cinema.”
De Laurentiis has long been a change agent, and while she’s accomplished so much, her ambition hasn’t waned from when she first aspired to “wow people” at age 12. In February, she announced a deal to develop unscripted series for Amazon Studios. “I’m going do something with Evan [Funke] at Amazon; and then I have a remodel show, that’ll hopefully come out in ’24,” she says. “Then my Giadzy Pasta, which is what I’ve been spending most of my time working on. And I’m hoping to have my own Giadzy Tomatoes, too.”
This cover story first appeared in the January 2024 issue of Los Angeles magazine, on newsstands now; click here to subscribe today.
Credits:
Creative direction by Ada Guerin
Photographed by Corina Marie
Styled by Jordan + Jennie
Food styled by Maya Bookbinder
Props styled by Nidia Cueva
First assistant: Sandra Rivera
Second assistant: Davis Bonner
Production assistant: Victoria Finocchio
Photographed on location at Terranea Resort and inside mar’sel
Giada De Laurentiis January Cover Shoot
(Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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P.S. want to attend Los Angeles magazine’s pop-up dinner with Giada De Laurentiis?The celebrity chef will be serving spectacular pasta creations and more at Engine Co. No. 28 restaurant in DTLA on Jan. 25. Click here to find out how to reserve your spot at the table!
Dining and Cooking