“Italian desserts aren’t meant to be eaten at the end of a meal,” said Evan Kleiman. The host of KCRW’s Good Food and I had just turned down a sweet ending to our lunch at Vincenti Ristorante.

Maybe it's that I long to return to Italy and retrace childhood travels. Or perhaps I miss exercising the learning-a-foreign language region of my brain. Whatever the reason, I feel compelled to ...

The space, which you can see in the gallery above, is refined, but not too fancy to discourage casual passersby. Wood table tops with comfortable chairs decked out in a resplendent orange, along with ...