Caffé Delfini Nourishes the Canyon for 35 Years

Caffé Delfini co-owners Teri and Alex Ercoli

By Laurel Busby

News & Information Editor

Someone could dine at Caffé Delfini every night for two months and never eat the same entrée twice.

“Most restaurants seem to be choosing smaller and smaller menus,” co-owner Alex Ercoli said. “We went the opposite way. We’re old school. We have almost everything. We never try to be glamorous. We try to be accessible and not pretentious. It’s really, really good food, but not at a crazy price.”

This way of doing things has been a recipe for long-term success since Ercoli and two childhood friends, Lino Savoia and Gianpietro Silardi, purchased the restaurant in 1990. Even after Silardi retired and Savoia passed away, Ercoli’s new co-owners, his wife, Teri, and Riccardo Menichetti, who both bought stakes in the restaurant two years ago, sought to retain the same authentic food and cozy, romantic ambience.

“Caffé Delfini is a time capsule; we are stuck in 1990 in a town where a lot of restaurants come and go or change their menus every month,” Ercoli said. “We’ve had the same head chefs [Rigo Miralrio and Cristobal Rivera] for 33 years…. The food has been the same and as good for all these years. There aren’t many ups and downs at Caffé Delfini.”

Customers return again and again for particular favorites, including unique dishes, such as the “experiential” tagliolini radicchio, which combines fettuccini with radicchio and parmesan amid a background flavor of guanciale (a pork cut), and fusilli nassa, which features pasta with shrimp in a cream and tomato sauce.

The fusilli nassa “has a versatile and very delicate reduction of cream and tomato,” Ercoli said. “We’ve had entire parties of 12 having just that. It’s like a cult for people.”

Alex Ercoli (left) with fellow owner Riccardo Menichetti

Two of their most popular desserts are homemade orange ice cream, which is “as refreshing a sorbet,” but with cream, or their tiramasu, which is decaffeinated so it won’t keep customers awake who order it late at night, Ercoli noted.

Strangely enough for a restaurant that has such a long history of consistency, its origin began by happenstance. More than 40 years ago, Ercoli and his friends, who met in kindergarten in Pomezia, a small town on the outskirts of Rome, wanted to explore the world after graduating from high school.

They first flew from Italy to London in 1982 and liked the British city so much that they extended their stay for several years. When they were ready to continue their journey, they bought round-the-world tickets and visited India, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Australia. They spent a month or so in each destination, although Australia became their home for six months.

In some areas, they worked as bartenders, waiters, and even disco promoters, and they eventually reached Los Angeles in 1987. Silardi got a job at Café Lido in the Canyon, and three years later, just as the trio was planning to move to their next destination, Argentina, they received an offer to buy Café Lido from Silardi’s boss, Eddi Ciani.

The friends had some money saved, and they decided to take a chance on Ciani’s offer. They made a down payment, and she promised to return their money if the venture didn’t work. But it was an immediate success. The friends soon expanded the menu and renamed the spot Caffé Delfini.

In their early years as co-owners of Caffé Delfini, childhood friends (from left to right) Gianpietro Silardi, Lino Savoia and Alex Ercoli 

“The restaurant enabled us to have a canvas to being creative,” Ercoli said. “They say every Italian person’s dream is to own a restaurant. Food is in our veins. There’s a chemistry to being creative. It became a natural lifestyle, and we became part of the fabric of this little neighborhood.”

The small homey nature of the Canyon also reminded them of their childhood home of Pomezia where they knew their neighbors and had a strong sense of identity.

“The American dream is to become rich, but not for me; it’s more about having a place,” Ercoli said. Through operating the restaurant, “my family grew to a gigantic number of people I feel comfortable with…. I truly enjoy the interactions. The small talk that we do has a depth because of knowing these people for so many years.”

Of course, since the Jan. 7 Palisades Fire, Caffé Delfini has struggled as have other Canyon businesses. Initially, many Palisadians who lost their homes continued to visit the restaurant simply to be close to their former neighborhood, while Canyon residents ordered a steady amount of takeout to help support them.

Yet, as the months have passed, business has slowed substantially, Ercoli said. Thus far, Caffé Delfini has maintained the same number of employees and shift hours, and Ercoli is hopeful that they’ll never have to reduce either, although he knows it could happen.

He recently joined the new Canyon Business Association to help find ways to improve the situation. The owners and managers of 18 Canyon businesses have begun meeting to support both each other and the broader community.

“It's heartwarming to see merchants getting together and having one voice,” Ercoli said. “It feels good.”

Caffé Delfini is open seven days a week from 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m. at 147 W. Channel Rd. For reservations and information, contact (310) 459-8823. Pickup and delivery are available through their website: caffedelfini.com.