Read article here!

Neighborhood Watch: Little Italy
Our new monthly feature featuring new stuff, fun facts and the OG
locals of San Diego's best burgs
BY TORREY BAILEY
Photo by Torrey Bailey
If something seems fishy in San Diego, it's not the beach. It's Little Italy, the
former hub of the world's once-leading tuna industry. In the '20s, the promise of
sun and steady income convinced thousands of Italian families to relocate here.
With the construction of the Interstate 5 cutting through the neighborhood and a
rise in foreign competition, the big name tuna brands closed up shop, just as the
rest of downtown was reopening for business. Making its revival in the 2000s,
Little Italy received its landmark sign and progressed into a slice of Sicily.
Bordered by Laurel Street on the north and bottoming out at Ash Street, Little
Italy is a hotbed of tourism, officially signified by the existence of the
neighborhood's own app, featuring guided walking tours and hotel suggestions.
Despite its undeniably American influence, Little Italy gives a nod to two cultural
standards: an overwhelming selection of hand-tossed pizza and house-made
pasta, and a historically significant art scene whose decline in popularity left a
vacuum that was filled with artisanal furniture shops.
THE CORNER
Where India and Date streets meet, construction on the upcoming Piazza
Famiglia puts the neighborhood's prime intersection in a bit of limbo. Still, it
signifies the pinpoint between the area's most popular blocks. Gazing straight
down Date there's a view of the San Diego Bay; a glance to the right finds the
Little Italy sign and a look to the left lands on the downtown skyline. All along
India there's an abundance of diners digging in at well-heeled eateries such as
seafood-heavy Ironside, or partaking in pasta portions at Prepkitchen, Buon
Appetito or Davanti Enoteca.
Kathi and Perri L. Meyer
Photo by Seth Combs
KETTNER KNIGHT
"It was the hot neighborhood. We used to get 200 people in here when there was
aKettner Nights event," says Perry L. Meyer, when asked about the heyday of
the northern Little Italy art scene in the '90s and throughout the '00s. "There was
so much going on and so many more businesses that were related to art, but
rents went up and artists moved out. It's a vicious cycle." Still, Meyer stood
strong. HisMeyer Fine Art space (2400 Kettner Blvd.) is celebrating its 10th
anniversary this year and the congenial 68-year-old Meyer, with help from his
wife Kathi, still has an infectious attitude when it comes to the work. "I love
watching collections grow or getting people started on their own collection,"
Meyer says. "That's what I'm all about."
—Seth Combs
Snoozy dogs at Bedford
Photo by Torrey Bailey
HARD DÉCOR
The whole rebranding of Northern Little Italy is kind of lame (NoLI, really?), but
given a new abode and about five figures to blow, we know where weíd go for all
our housewares needs. Yes, for three blocks on Kettner and India between
Laurel and Hawthorne streets, discerning customers can find everything from a
new bed to a mid-century armoire. Places such asIndia Street
Antiques and Boomerang for Modern have been there for decades, but
relative newcomers such as the custom carpenters at Bedford, the bedroom
designers at AT HOM and the mid-century dealers at Homesteezhave secured
the neighborhood's reputation as a go-to design and decorating destination. India
Street Antiques even opened its own neighboring specialty store, Danish
Modern San Diego, which is filled to the ceiling with vintage pieces. And yeah,
we probably only could afford a vintage watering can fromArchitectural
Salvage, but we'll still go to these stores just to sigh and dream of the day when
we can have things this nice. Oh, and to pet those sweet pooches in front of
Bedford.
—Seth Combs
Ryan Bradford ponders nougat and life, chews it over.
Photo by Torrey Bailey
TAKE ME TO THE CANDY SHOP
Mona Lisa Foods (2061 India St.) is like your grandmother: staunch in tradition,
impervious to change, and whose idea of a reward is often very detrimental to
your health. The popular market is also home to a bunch of rare items, including
a gamut of mysterious candies located around the cash register. We decided to
test the candies, which we've always been curious about but too afraid to try.
La Florentine Torrone. It's impossible to ignore these little boxes adorned with
illustrations of Italian figures. Open them up, and you find foil-wrapped, supersweet, lightly flavored nougat. The boxes are dope, but the excessive packaging
seems to be overcompensating for the meh candies.
Lazzaroni. Cookies wrapped in thin, pastel-colored tissue paper. Mine was
halfway open when I bought it. Certainly some food-safety violation going on.
The cookies turned out to be pretty good biscotti, but official review TBD,
depending on whether or not we die from eating it.
Caffarellino. This is the money candy. It's shaped like an ice cream cone but
filled with whatever heaven is inside those Ferrero Rocher chocolate balls. Nears
the line of being too intense, but nothing a little San Pellegrino can't wash away.
Be prepared to be sugar-buzzed out of your gourd for the rest of the day.
—Ryan Bradford
EVENTS
· Gran Fondo
Sunday, April 10
· Mission Federal ArtWalk
Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1
· Taste of Little Italy
June
· Little Italy FESTA!
Sunday, Oct. 9
COLORFUL CHARACTERS
Joe Busalacchi—chef and restaurant owner
"I can't get enough of Little Italy, but being the pioneer, that sort of just
happened," says Joe Busalacchi, owner of four Italian restaurants on India
Street, not to mention several others spread around San Diego like grated
Parmesan. Moving here from Sicily at the age of eight, Busalacchi learned
English at Washington Elementary School on State Street. Then he landed his
first job as a chef on board the tuna boat Uncle Louie, where he cooked for 22
men before upgrading to his first restaurant, Busalacchi's (3707 Fifth Ave.).
When he decided to open up Trattoria Fantastica (1735 India St.) in Little Italy,
the neighborhood hadn't even earned its name yet. "It was interesting because 8
o'clock or 9 o'clock would come around, and there would be nobody around, but
we felt it was going to come." Indeed, that neighborhood resurgence came.
When he's out of the office he's back in the kitchen, testing the restaurants'
recipes, including ones for Po Pazzo's transformation into Barbusa (1917 India
St.), which will have a Mediterranean-inspired menu decked out in pastas with
sea urchin and octopus. But Busalacchi's son, PJ, says his favorite dish banks on
the basics—pasta, broccoli, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, an ingredient
Busalacchi was raised on and couldn't cook without.
Catt White—Curator of the Little Italy Mercato
"I lived in Little Italy and we could do anything we wanted there without getting in
our cars, except shop for our groceries," says Catt White, referring back to 2008.
She is the only one who chooses the Mercato's weekly vendors, and she admits
being picky about it. The Saturday Farmer's Market now spans five blocks and is
the largest in the county. White says the surrounding businesses are on board,
but the locals are a mixed bag. Picture post-Friday night when you're waking up
to an Advil-resistant headache while people are shouting "four-twenty-sixteen" or
they're cracking open a sea urchin and taking a selfie outside your window. But
she says the market serves as a community quarters, softening the scrutiny, and
the market's business has become everyone's business. "We know if (the
vendor's) baby is sick, they're going to be out that week. And the whole market
was rooting when the guy selling sauerkraut, his kid went to the national Little
League thing," she says. "If you want to just grocery shop, it's way easier to just
use the parking lot at Vons to go in and out, but people like to know where their
food comes from."
Joe Scafidi—Bocce ball aficionado
91-year-old Joe Scafidi has been playing bocce ball in Amici Park, at the corner
of State and Date streets, for nearly half his life, 40 years to be exact Everyone
on the court quickly came to a consensus that he's the best of the bunch. Bocce
ball, a game of strategy dating back to the Egyptians, challenges players to toss
a set of balls, or bocce, as close to a marker as possible, making the team that
gets the closest the winner. "You have to have good judgment to see where the
other bocce are," says Scafidi. His words are stressed in Sicilian descent, which
is where he emigrated from in 1975 to become the captain of 12 tuna boats. He
says an average load would bring 20 to 50 tons of tuna, but that he would catch
sets of over 200 tons, totaling in 450,000 to 500,000 tons per year, before
environmentalists chased him and tuna companies like Starkist and Van Camp
out of business. Despite being put out of a job, he hasn't considered moving out
of San Diego. "I've been as far as Hawaii, Marcus Island, all the way to Peru,
Chile and the other side of the Caribbean. I've been there too, but there's
nowhere like the climate in San Diego."
HANGING OVER YOUR HEAD
Ever looked up at the ceiling of a Little Italy eatery and thought, "What the hell?"
The design elements hanging overhead can trigger that reaction so we set out to
collect those stories.
Filippi's
Photo by Torrey Bailey
Filippi's (1747 India St.)
Every wooden beam inside Filippi's drips with Chianti bottles. General manager
Danny (Filippi) Moceri says it dates back to the '50s when fishermen would order
bottles of the wine from his grandparents while they waited for their orders. "They
would tell my grandfather, we'll pay you when we come back from our big catch.
So to keep track of them, the fishermen would drink the bottle of wine, put a nail
on the wall, and they would sign it." Eventually it got out of hand, and his
grandfather cut off the trade. Since then, the originals have been removed since
their straw became a fire hazard, but now Chianti bottles from current customers
hover above.
Kettner Exchange
Photo by Torrey Bailey
Kettner Exchange (2001 Kettner Blvd)
Kettner Exchange is a tribute to former congressman William Kettner, who
brought the Navy to San Diego, inspiring related industries and igniting an
economic boom. The restaurant's two levels were thematically designed to
reference that surge in maritime and manmade materials. Hanging in the center
of the double decker space is Tecture designer David Michael's wooden
sculpture, which he says "was intended to be a type of bridge between the two,
spanning between the levels, 'joining' the Lower Level (which is darker, heavier,
a bit more masculine) to the Upper Level (lighter, airy, spacious and more on the
feminine side) together."
Bracero Cocina de Raiz
Photo by Torrey Bailey
Bracero Cocina de Raiz (1490 Kettner Blvd.)
Above the bottles and barstools is an art piece that resembles a farming tool and
recognizes the oft-overlooked bracero migrant labor movement. "It's an homage
to these men who worked their asses off 24-7 and were the foundation for a
better life for their families," said artist Daniel Ruanova. "They helped shape
California into what it is today and they don't get credit for that."