Since 1987
A Table in Little Italy
Marco Ricci left Bologna in 1985 with two things: a worn copy of his grandmother's recipe notebook and a conviction that San Francisco deserved a real Italian neighborhood restaurant — not a theme park version, but the kind of place where the pasta is rolled by hand every morning and the sauce has been simmering on the back burner since 8 AM.
He found a narrow storefront on Vine Street, borrowed money from his uncle, installed a wood-fired oven shipped from Naples, and opened with four tables. The neighborhood line started forming on day two.
Thirty-seven years later, the oven is the same. The tagliatelle recipe is the same. The neighborhood has changed around us, but the table is still set the same way every morning.
