When Eataly opens its first West Coast location at Westfield Century City on Friday, it promises to deliver on what the decade-old Italian institution has dubbed “culinary theater.” That means there’s not just one restaurant but four of them alongside nine eateries, a pair of cafes, two bars, five different retail departments and another five production counters where you can watch pasta, mozzarella, bread, gelato, and cannoli being made fresh daily.
The international one-stop culinary emporium is a little like an amusement park-sized shrine to Italian cuisine: There’s a butchery, a bakery, a seafood counter, and even a place to buy housewares, so you can source and plate an entire dinner party from start to finish in the same place, after you’ve scarfed down some fresh-made pizza or pasta in-house. But Eataly’s array of high-end, carb-heavy offerings is arguably overshadowed by its mountain of cheeses, which at its Los Angeles salumi & formaggi counter will come from dozens of independent producers from California to Italy.
Among Eataly’s local suppliers is Di Stefano Cheese, a family-owned dairy company and cheese plant in Pomona. Founder Mimmo Bruno says two of his cheesemakers will be on hand at Eataly every day to prepare fresh mozzarella and burrata, which will also be served at Eataly’s restaurants and available for retail purchase. His game plan? “We make our curds here at Di Stefano, and then we bring it fresh every morning and we stretch the mozzarella there and then it’s packed in cups and then it’s served to the restaurant inside Eataly,” says Bruno, who was raised in the Puglia region of Italy and got his first job at a cheese factory when he was eleven years old.
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