After weathering the pandemic, Chad Colby’s first restaurant has turned over a new leaf—hence the addition of “Nuovo.” The tightly curated menu of panes antipasti, pastas, wood-fired mains and vegetables feels more focused than ever; the delicate housemade pastas sit in pools of carefully prepared sauces; and there is, of course, Antico Nuovo's silky ice cream, made famous during lockdown, and still available by the pint if you ask nicely and the kitchen's not too busy. Every dish is excellent, but you’d be hard-pressed not to order at least one order of Colby's thick focaccia, whether your tastes veer towards briny anchovies or creamy burrata in scallion oil. Ragu lovers will rue the day they try the beef check and veal tongue version offered here—the dish will probably be ruined for them anywhere else.

Italian country cooking is an endlessly replicated genre in Southern California, but a visit to Chad Colby’s open kitchen and glowing, grown-up dining room is an energizing reminder of how irresistible it can be when handled with focus and skill. Go for the slightly esoteric, perfectly made pastas, like dimpled foglie d’ulivo, perky malloreddus and slippery, thin-skinned plin dell’ alta langa, but don’t let it be at the expense of the olive oil-soaked focaccia, the beans baked with bread over a wood fire or the intensely flavored ice creams. 4653 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles; 323-510-3093; anticonuovo-la.com

If you need help visualizing what the heck the Plin Dell’ Alta Langa is at Antico Nuovo, just picture tiny pillow-shaped agnolotti stuffed with ground beef cheeks, pancetta, and a bit of rabbit, then braised in butter and sage. The housemade pasta is perfectly al dente, and all of the meats blended inside are as balanced as a barbershop quartet’s harmonies. This dish alone is an excellent reason to keep this Italian spot in Koreatown in your rotation of romantic date spots, but you should also come here for some of the best ice cream in town.

The pandemic spurred chef Chad Colby to rebrand his original Antico restaurant to Antico Nuovo, and judging from the perpetually packed dining room, the revamp was the right move at the right time. Tucked in a nondescript strip mall on the border of Koreatown and Larchmont, the restaurant now offers a more elevated menu and ambiance for diners starved for extraordinary Italian fare. You might remember Antico’s mouthwatering focaccia pizza and freshly spun ice cream during the height of COVID-19, which helped keep the lights on.

Chad Colby first popped up on the collective radar of LA’s dining conoscenti with the culinary classes he taught (on pizza-making, whole hog butchery, charcuterie and more) in a small test kitchen wedged between Nancy Silverton’s Mozza2Go storefront and her flagship Osteria Mozza. Eventually, Silverton turned the test kitchen into a real one, made Colby the chef and helped him create a jewel box of an Italian restaurant that in short order became one of the city’s preeminent temples of wood-fired meats. Colby’s kinship with fire became the cornerstone of his own restaurant, Antico, which he...

The pearl of Kevin Caravelli’s versatile list is the “Vino Antico” section, a collection of 50 or so wines bottled in the 1970s through the 1990s — and plenty of them in the $100 to $200 range. A gamble on a 1988 Duca di Salaparuta from Sicily (Caravelli hadn’t opened one yet; I shared it with him so we could discuss) paid off with raisiny, still-layered richness. The flavors wrapped themselves around dishes like Chad Colby’s fazzoletti with beef cheek and veal tongue Bolognese.

Veering back towards that big boot in the sea, Antico Nuovo is more understated and paired down than Italian pizza and pasta joints and thankfully there’s room for it all. At Antico, we actually recommend starting with the wine list and selecting a glass to start and then finding a dish to match because all by-the-glass options are offered with the menu in mind. A Mexican Falanghina, for example, is right in our wheelhouse and even more so when we pair it with Antico’s caprese.

Antico Nuovo transports patrons to the Italian countryside with its traditional menu and classic Italian wine list. The communal tables create a cozy sense of home, while the open kitchen lets you watch as the chefs cook a variety of meats and veggies over the wood-fired grill. Since the menu changes seasonally, there are always new dishes to try, but the focaccia, tuna crudo and beef cheek pappardelle are regulars that never get old, as is the hand-churned ice cream.

Located between the border of Larchmont and Koreatown, Antico Nuovo draws inspiration from the Italian countryside and its traditional cooking methods. Besides their wide-ranging pasta menu, it is worth exploring their meat and fish dishes, cooked in a wood-fired hearth. Antico Nuovo has been recently featured on Bon Appetit, which comes as no surprise as it is one of the most talked about Italian restaurants in the city.

Visiting Antico Nuovo is like taking a quick day trip to the Italian countryside without actually having to hop on a plane. The methods and techniques at this restaurant are rooted in ancient tradition, giving guests a true taste of Italy right in the middle of Beverly Boulevard. The menu changes with the seasons, though there are some staples that remain all year long such as burrata appetizer, spaghetti, and branzino.

Many say Antico Nuovo’s freshly spun ice cream is the best in the city and customers happily pay up to $18 a pint for it. The pints to-go are not always in-stock, but the ice creams are still available as dessert when you dine in at the restaurant. The seasonal flavors are great, but the honeycomb ice cream is a signature standby.

Chef Chad Colby's Antico Nuovo is an upscale Italian spot that hides unexpectedly in a Koreatown strip mall. While the wood-fired hearth is the star of Antico Nuovo's kitchen, the pasta is impeccable and not to be missed. The menu at Antico Nuovo only has a handful of pasta options, but you can't go wrong with any of them.

Antico Nuovo has consistently wowed diners with its seasonal Italian fare featuring high-quality ingredients and exceptional wines. Chef Chad Colby elevates every dish with an artisanal approach, be it duck liver pate, beef cheek and veal tongue ragu bolognese or the Tuscan-grilled pork ribs.

Plates of pasta at Antico Nuovo - anticonuovo___la/Instagram. Chef Chad Colby's Antico Nuovo is an upscale Italian spot that hides unexpectedly in a Koreatown strip mall. While the wood-fired hearth is the star of Antico Nuovo's kitchen, the pasta is impeccable and not to be missed.