2014 Food & Drink Awards nominees: Best new pizzeria

The Westside's best Neopolitan-style pies makes its debut in Hollywood. Steps from the Arclight, Stella Barra (its Santa Monica sister, formerly known as Stella Rossa) is the perfect pre and post–movie nosh stop—open until midnight Sunday to Thursday and until 2am Fridays and Saturdays. There's plenty of seating in the lofty space with a full bar serving local craft beers, Italian and Californian wines by the glass and bottle and creative cocktails.

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It seemed like only yesterday we were in the midst of a pizza moment, when no new restaurant in town seemed complete without its own wood-burning brick oven, its own meticulously prepared crust. This fascination with pizza has since been displaced by other trends (gastropubs, seafood shacks, etc.), but, thankfully, we’re still seeing great pizza specialists pop up all over town, just with slightly less fanfare. Which brings us to South End, a very good, very subdued wine-and-pizza restaurant in a strip mall on the southern tip of Abbott Kinney.

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A pizzeria open until 3am? Our drunken prayers have been answered. Pellicola Pizzeria lies a quick stumble away from multiple Downtown bars, meaning that when the lights come on at closing hour, this is where you head to cap off the night. Whether you nosh on a slice of Nonna Maria, Vegetariana or Tricolore, you'll be happy to wake up the next morning tasting leftover pizza and not vodka cranberry.

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Neapolitan-style pizzeria DeSano Pizza Bakery brings a true taste of Italy to LA. And we're not just saying that: mozzarella di bufala is flown in fresh from a small town in Campania, flour is shipped over by boat, salt is gleaned from the Mediterranean Sea, and their handmade wood-burning ovens are supposedly made with "volcanic rock from Mount Vesuvius". They'll be ready with your order in all of sixty seconds, so you'll have plenty of time to mingle inside the spacious dining room, or get back to work in a hurry.

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