In the heart of the Arts District of Los Angeles, inside a 1931 corner building with a weathered brick façade, Bianca Sicilian Trattoria opened in late September 2025: the new project of Michele Galifi, a Palermo-born chef now at his third Californian restaurant. The dining room — marble bar, hardwood floor, teal and gold accents — opens onto an inner patio that recalls the courtyard of a house or an open-air piazza. In the kitchen, alongside the handmade pastas and the dishes of Sicilian cuisine, oven work is central: for pizza, first of all, but also for fish, meat, bread and vegetables. The technical choice fell on Moretti Forni, and specifically on serieS, an extremely versatile model designed to ensure absolute temperature control and maximum cooking continuity.
«I am always looking for consistency and precision: perfection is an illusion, there is always something to improve, but consistency is a concrete goal, and it is a hard achievement for many chefs and restaurants», Galifi says. «These ovens make it possible».
Michele Galifi's relationship with dough and with the oven has deep roots. Born and raised in Palermo, he first set foot in a pizzeria at the age of eight, when his father opened his own place in 1995. «That is where I learned the basics of the craft, in a place where pizza was the main activity. My first experience was with an electric oven: at the time, having that kind of oven in a pizzeria was no small thing», he recalls. «In Italy it is normal for the children to help out in the pizzeria: here in America you do not see it that much, but back home it is the rule».
From Palermo,
Galifi arrived in Los Angeles after earning a degree in engineering: «I wanted to do something different», he explains. In the United States, however, he reconnected with his original passion: «Once I finished university I moved to Los Angeles, and I found myself going to school and at the same time still cooking pizza and Italian food. That is when I realized that my true calling was that one: cooking, and showing what authentic Italian cuisine really is».
The point is central, for Galifi. «In Los Angeles there is great confusion about what real Italian food is, and what is instead the Italian-American food that came from the East Coast, or what someone tries to emulate by reading a book. There is nothing wrong with that, for those who have not lived or grown up in Italy, but I wanted the difference to be clear. I cook authentic Sicilian food, lifting it up with a contemporary touch and more modern techniques».
Bianca Sicilian Trattoria is
Galifi's third restaurant in Los Angeles. The first was called
Casa Mia Sicilian Trattoria: «A more home-style cooking, less refined than this one, in line with the area I was in at the time». Two years later, in downtown, came
Farina Pizza, mostly devoted to delivery and takeaway, with a menu leaning more towards Italian-American classics, from New York-style pizza to meatball sandwiches. Then came Covid:
Galifi closed
Casa Mia and kept
Farina Pizza running for another three years. In the meantime he got married, had a daughter, and with a growing family downtown turned out to be a poor fit.
Farina Pizza, too, was sold. «I was off for about a year and a half, but I kept thinking that I wanted to get back into it, to reopen a restaurant, to really show what Sicilian cuisine is».
The new restaurant's name comes from Galifi's firstborn daughter, Bianca. «When I found this space, something clicked. I wanted this place to be directly connected to my passion, to my love for Sicily and for Italian cooking». The result, he admits, does not look like a typical Los Angeles restaurant: «It has a European, Italian soul. There is a small bar area at the entrance, a wine bar, then a corridor leading to a large outdoor patio, a real garden with fountains, which recalls the courtyard of a house or an open-air piazza. People are surprised when they walk in».
When the restaurant first opened, pizza was not yet on the menu. During the construction work on the space
Galifi had broken his arm, and since he could not find anyone able to make his pizza to the standard he wanted, he preferred to wait. «As soon as I recovered I started making it myself, and it joined the menu. My original idea was for it to be more of a sharing item, almost a starter: each table orders one and shares it. The truth is, since I am known in Los Angeles especially for pizza, many people come to
Bianca just for that».
Galifi's pizza has a precise identity, built on a Sicilian model rather than a Neapolitan one, even though it is in the Neapolitan pizza circuits that he has competed over the years. «Every region and every city in Italy has its own specialties and flavors, from north to south everything changes. Sicily in particular has a complex history: it has been crossed by many peoples and influences», he explains. For his doughs he uses a blend of flours — semolina, type 00, wheat — that give structure and aroma. «In Sicily, pizza tends to be crispier than the Neapolitan one, even when it is cooked in a wood-fired oven: and that is the model I prefer». Hydration is high, but crispness is even: «From the crust all the way to the center. The aromas and flavors that come out are distinctive: they remind me of certain breads and certain pizzas that you find in the small Sicilian towns».
The most requested pizza is the Diavola. «In Los Angeles, also because of the strong Latin presence, there is a real appetite for spicy flavors», Galifi notes. His version brings together smoked mozzarella, fior di latte, dried chipotle chili, soppressata, house-made aglio confit, Sicilian oregano and extra virgin olive oil. But the decisive touch is the addition of crushed Sicilian chili, similar in profile to Calabrian chili: «It is spicy, certainly, but above all it gives a unique aromatic profile, born from the meeting of these three spices with the smokiness and with the crispness of the dough».
Bianca, however, is not only a pizzeria. The trattoria's offering extends to handmade pastas,
antipasti, meat and fish: the
Mafalde aglio e olio with anchovies, roasted garlic, lemon, parsley and toasted bread crumbs, which
Galifi considers an icon of Sicilian pasta; the
Polpo, a tentacle slow-cooked for six hours in extra virgin olive oil and bay leaves and finished on the grill, served with a Mediterranean-style octopus salad; the
Arancine, fried rice balls filled with cooked ham, mozzarella and béchamel, a cornerstone of Palermo street food; the
Burratina with crushed Sicilian pistachios, wine-poached pear and basil; the
Branzino with
salmoriglio sauce; the
Pappardelle with wild boar
ragù and wild fennel.
Galifi's encounter with Moretti Forni goes back three or four years, at a Pizza Expo. «I used to compete regularly in traditional Neapolitan pizza competitions, and we always had extra dough to experiment with. A technician from the company offered to let me try one of those ovens: I was impressed right away. No maintenance, the ability to set temperatures precisely, separate control of top and bottom heat, and therefore remarkable consistency».
For Bianca, the chosen model is the serieS. «I had originally been looking at the Neapolis, for the type of shape and cooking. But then, after talking to the sales rep and to the Moretti team, they steered me towards the serieS, which is the most compact oven, with the best temperature control and the performance I needed». Galifi tested it, and came to appreciate its operational details: the body and handle that never get hot to the touch; the temperature that holds steady throughout the day regardless of the workload; the capacity to hold six pizzas at once in a compact space, with two-minute bakes; the lightness of the body, which four people were able to lift at installation. «I had tried other electric ovens from other brands as well: they were much heavier, much bulkier, much less manageable. The serieS, from all of these points of view, makes the difference».
The oven, at
Bianca, works well beyond pizza.
Galifi uses it for fish, red meats, bread, roasted vegetables, sausages. «Having control of the temperature, I can go up to 420°C on the top if I need to, or push the bottom heat». Among the preparations he has developed is a sea bass fillet cooked with its skin on: it goes into a pan in the pizza oven and comes out with a particularly crispy skin: «A result that only that oven can give me». Sausages are cooked directly on the trays to obtain a pronounced caramelization on the surface; steaks, from raw, stay in the oven for two minutes per side and come out seared on the outside and medium rare inside.
For the future, Galifi already has an idea, but it is not another restaurant. «My medium-term goal is for people to come here, try the food, understand and appreciate Sicilian cuisine in its authentic form», he says. «Further down the line, if the business grows, I would like to develop something larger: a project around Sicilian street food». The image he has in mind is that of a large warehouse in which to rebuild a Sicilian piazza: tables and chairs in the middle, the bar counter, and all around the chance of having an aperitivo, a coffee, something to eat, a gelato. «If you know Sicily, you know how central street food is: I would like to bring a version of that here, recreating the atmosphere of the piazza». For now, that piazza is the patio of Bianca Sicilian Trattoria.
