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Press and Reviews

SF Weekly - Sardini-Yum! - By Robert Lauriston July 5, 2006
Allow La Ciccia to transport you to a Mediterranean island with flavorful food and vino. The time I spent at La Ciccia was pure pleasure. Go there with a hearty appetite, get yourself a seafood pasta and some vermentino, then the lamb stew and cannonau, and let La Ciccia transport you to Sardinia for a couple of hours.

Magazine - San Francisco
SCENE: It may seem like a cliché, but La Ciccia really is a little piece of Italy transported to SF. EATS: When we say “Italy,” we really mean the Italian island of Sardinia. Even the pizza is distinctively Sardinian, with capers making an otherwise simple cheese pizza stellar. The wine list offers an array of little-known Italian labels.

Noe Valley Voice - La Ciccia - By Doug Konecky May 2006
Little-known cuisine from a Mediterranean island. La Ciccia, the first Sardinian restaurant west of Dallas, has opened in the Noe Valley. It is an intimate, 40-seat bistro co-owned by wine connoisseur Massimiliano Conti and his wife Lorella Degan.

La Ciccia: Island in the sun - By Paul Reidinger 06-07-2006
The sardine does not, interestingly, loom large on the menu of la Ciccia, a restaurant serving Sardinian cuisine that Massimiliano Conti and Lorella Degan opened toward the end of March in a storefront space at the foot of Church Street.

La Ciccia: Sardinian Splendor - ByTeddy Witherington October 12, 2006
The meal I enjoyed on Thursday was both satisfying and sumptuous. The price to quality to quantity ratios are exceptional, and to eat here is to get a true sense of a unique European culture and its food.

The great restaurants of SAN FRANCISCO
La Ciccia, Noe Valley's newest trattoria, serves up the most exciting Italian food with absolute passion from husband-and-wife owners, Massimiliano Conti and Lorella Degan. La Ciccia is revolutionary in defining casual yet elegant dining, and is an experience not to be missed.

La Ciccia revels in seafaring Sardinian cuisine - By Michael Bauer Sunday, July 16, 2006
A pleasant introduction to the foods of Sardinia. Excellent pizza, pasta and braised seafood dishes. Helpful service. Exceptional Italian wine list. Clearly, passion prevails with the wines, as it does with the food. San Franciscans are always willing to trade glamour for good cooking. At La Ciccia, the tradeoff is more than fair.

10 Best Italian Restaurants in San Francisco
LA CICCIA: Viva La Ciccia!
Locals happily fatten up on Massimiliano Conti's rich, fresh Sardinian food.

LA CICCIA, Taste of Sardinia - By Patricia Unterman, June 21,2006
San Francisco’s new Sardinian restaurant, has opened at just the right time for Italian wine and food lovers to take notice. Any seafood dish on the small menu will be terrific.

Best of Citysearch 2006 - La Ciccia Editorial Review - By Lorraine Sanders
The husband and wife duo behind this 40-seat destination bypass the usual suspects from the mainland in favor of Sardinia's culinary traditions and fruits of the vine.

La Ciccia - Zagat Rated 2006/07/08
Several regional Italians have recently set up shop in Outer Noe Valley, and this newcomer, billed as the only Sardinian restaurant west of Dallas, extends the trend; while the menu offers several robust, slow-cooked meats ('la ciccia' is slang for 'the belly'), seafood abounds and the decor has subtle aquamarine tone and accents that conjure up seaside life.

Il Provinciale - By Gianni Avanti, January 01, 2007
Massimiliano Conti da Gonnosfanadiga, in California con l’orgoglio di essere Sardo.

La Ciccia "Savor Sardinia"  By Amy Sherman (Thursday, February 15, 2007)
The menu reflects only the cuisine of Sardinia. There is no Fettucine Alfredo, no Veal Parmigiana, no Insalata Caprese -- but trust us when we tell you -- you won't miss that standard fare. For those who know Italian food and culture, there is much that will bring a smile here. La Ciccia is not just a place to try something new; it's also a place where one can linger and feel at home.

La Ciccia Restaurant Friday, February 16, 2007
I love discovering another branch of Italian food. And at La Ciccia I enjoyed the same kind of friendliness and hospitality I remember from my happiest meals in Italy.

iLLogical News, La Ciccia - Food Is Love: - By A. Curatolo, E. Solomon, February 22, 2007
What do you call a cozy Italian restaurant when the chef is the owner, the hostess is his wife, the bread is homemade and the olive oil comes 6,000 miles from the family farm? You call it by the feeling from which has been born, the values with which it conducts itself, and the sentiment with which it leaves you. You call it love. La Ciccia dances and it is not the fox trot. It is a potent dance – one that leaves the guests lingering long after the meal is done. One that is appreciated from the very place from which it came – the heart. Yes, it’s true – food is love and La Ciccia proves it.

WINECOUNTRY.IT Selection, La Ciccia, Sardinian Restaurant  - By Loris Scagliarini - February 24, 2007 "Sardinian cuisine showcases what the land gives to the people, without being arrogant about it," says Conti. In fact, this is arguably the least pretentious, truest Italian regional restaurant I have ever eaten at on this side of the ocean.

Word of Mouth Pete Cherches blogs about food, travel and NYC stuff. Monday, September 17, 2007 California Moroccan and Sardinian Sardinian, LA CICCIA is thoroughly traditional Sardinian, the room is comfortable despite the tight quarters, and the service is delightfully unpretentious.The food at La Ciccia is a delight. An appetizer of baby calamari and clams was served in a delicious Vermentino wine broth that was great for a ritual bread bath. The traditional Sardinian flatbread baked with olive oil and sea salt had a wonderfully nutty flavor and a perfect crunch. If I lived in San Francisco I'd be a La Ciccia regular.

La Ciccia Sardinian Restaurant , Friday, April 6, 2007
I love this restaurant. This is not news as La Ciccia gets rave reviews from everyone from the SF Chronicle to Yelp.com. La Ciccia is a small Sardinian restaurant in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. The folks that own this great establishment are there to greet you when you arrive and come by regularly to see if you are okay and if the food is to your liking. This is an easy task for me as on both visits to La Ciccia the food and wine have been perfect.The food is great at La Ciccia and the people are wonderful. My kind of restaurant!

5 New San Francisco Restaurants, September 17, 2007
LA CICCIA Chef Massimiliano Conti quickly won a loyal following after opening this charming neighborhood trattoria serving Sardinian food. The Italian island's classics are all represented and prepared with care. Sardinian cuisine offers an exciting alternative to the familiar Italian flavors. Opt for one of the Sardinian gems on the large wine list.

San Francisco's Hottest Tables
A blend of old and new favorites makes for fine dining in the City by the Bay.
Few of San Francisco's Italian restaurants, alas, produce the basic, nothing-to-hide real thing.
La Ciccia. Massimiliano Conti presents the dishes of his native Sardinia with the modesty and directness that come from absolute confidence. A warm seafood salad with a few paper-thin slices of potato; pappardelle with freshly shaved white truffles; an orata roasted whole and served with only parsley, lemon and new-crop Sardinian olive oil: such simplicity requires mastery and yields pure pleasure.

August 2007
La Ciccia - This restaurant is honored by Wine Spectator for having one of the most autstanding restaurant wine list in the World.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
Golden memories from the Golden State - SARAH MUSGRAVE, The Gazette. Published: Saturday, August 04
My favourite and final meal was at La Ciccia, a low-key Sardinian eatery in a residential neighbourhood. The baby octopus seemed to dance in its dense sauce, the gnochetti with pork was unearthly. I would put a fork through someone's hand for more bottarga, compressed mullet roe, grated onto swordfish, and tuna carpaccio with lemon oil, or more homemade spaghetti with shavings of smoked tuna heart from Sardinia - our hostess said with dark flashing eyes that they'd been waiting almost a year for this stuff to be imported and "finally!" she waved her hands dramatically skyward. Animated conversation, two bottles of 2001 Terre Brune, one bottle of 2001 Shardana and one hurtling truck ride to the airport to catch the 11:50 p.m. flight home, and I had red eyes on the red eye, indeed.

COOK'S NIGHT OUT: Cookbook Writer Carol Field - Karola Saekel. Sunday, September 30, 2007
Asking Carol Field to a dinner interview at her favorite San Francisco restaurant is a question with a foregone answer: You know she is going to opt for one of the city's true Italian outposts. Berkeley-raised Field, a longtime San Francisco resident, is one of the most recognized nonnative scholars of Italian cuisine and culture and has written half a dozen books on the subject. Carol Field finally settled on a relative newcomer, Noe Valley's La Ciccia, which serves the cuisine of Sardinia, one of Italy's lesser-known and - until recent years - poorer regions, which nevertheless has a noteworthy and distinct cuisine. Field admires La Ciccia's pure approach as much as the warmth and conviviality of the staff members, who greet and treat everybody like cherished neighbors (many regulars are). The restaurant's simplicity, which lets top-grade ingredients (mostly organic) shine, perfectly matches Field's orientation, which places ingredients ahead of gastronomic finesse.

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