Sam “The Cooking Guy” Zien has made an adjustment to his Little Italy empire on Date Street’s popular Piazza della Famiglia. The former site of wine-centric restaurant Graze by Sam has transformed into Basta!
Why the name? The Italian slang word “basta” translates to English as “enough.”
“Maybe we’d had enough of the other place, Graze,” jokes Zien, as dinner service winds down on a warm Tuesday night. “It’s just a cheeky Italian name for when we decided to go in another direction.”
Zien says he scoured the internet for Italian slang words and Basta stuck. And no, it has nothing to do with pasta.
“Nothing like that,” he says, laughing. “The idea that the menu would have Basta’s pasta horrified me.”
Zien is the public face of Mike DiNorcia’s hospitality group Grit & Grain Collective. Inside the Little Italy Food Hall, on one side of the open-air Piazza della Famiglia, they run: the Food Hall bar, Not Not Tacos, Samburgers, and CooCoo’s Nest, a fried chicken concept that opened in 2023.
Quite a centralized operation.
“We like it here,” Zien deadpans. “We’re very lazy–we don’t like to travel too far.”
Most San Diegans recognize “Sam The Cooking Guy” from his local TV show. He stopped shooting that nine years ago. Now, though, his homespun content airs multiple nights a week on YouTube, where nearly four million subscribers tune in.
With the new Basta!, Zien lets whimsy reign. Walls are phantasmagorically decorated with an unconnected series of shapes and images. If you’re a fan of his show, you’ll delight in seeing two of his favorite taglines colorfully spelled out: “Big In Taste, Small In Effort,” and “And We Mix.”
The menu is uncomplicated and reasonably priced.
My wife and I honed in on two entrees to split. We ordered the Uni Cavatelli, which combines housemade pasta with Santa Barbara uni, mixed with cream, lemon and bonito flakes. Be warned: This bowl is uni-forward. If you don’t dig sea urchin this isn’t the dish for you. I found it to be a harmonious combination.
We couldn’t finish the amply garnished Cheese + Charcuterie plate (not for wanting). Team Meats included prosciutto, salami and pistachio mortadella. My wife, a cheese fiend, raved over the gouda, blue-brie Cambozola and the Laura Chenel goat cheese selections.
Yep, we slowed down on charcuterie consumption and boxed it to go. We had to finish the night with Basta!’s deconstructed tiramisu. It comes as a trio of cakes imbued with cocoa, cream and espresso.
After that, we had to say, enough. SDSun
