From Naples to Hollywood
to Santa Barbara:
L’antica Pizzeria da Michele
Owner Francesco Zimone Explains Why
This Pizza Star Now Shines on State Street
By Matt Kettmann | Photos by Ingrid Bostrom | April 9, 2023
From the outside, Francesco Zimone seemed to be living the high life in Los Angeles, renovating and designing fancy homes after successful stints in finance, film, and culinary sales. But inside, he felt incomplete.
“I had the need for expressing myself, and I also had a need for community,” explained Zimone. “My entire life was based on spending time with my work, because I do everything by hand. I had this obsession with the handmade, but I was also single and figured that there things more important in my life, like being together with people.”
He was deliberating whether to move back to Naples, Italy, where he grew up, or to open his own restaurant. He settled on doing a bit of both, hashing out a deal with the families that have run L’antica Pizzeria da Michele in Naples since 1870 to bring their concept to the United States.
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