Pizza Ortica, Costa Mesa

Proprietor and chef David Myers has never been a man to cut corners in the kitchen. He honed his attention to detail while working for Chicago's legendary Charlie Trotter and French gourmand Daniel Boulud, and then went on to earn praise of his own, including a Michelin star for his Sona Restaurant in West Hollywood.

At Chef Myers' Italian-spun invention, Pizzeria Ortica, patrons can peer at the open kitchen and watch as his team carefully assembles locally sourced and artisanal ingredients such as crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, cured pork cheek, and fennel pollen. An 800-degree wood-burning oven adds crispy finishing touches to Neapolitan-style pizzas built atop handmade dough, served alongside traditional antipastos and steaming portions of pasta.

A rustically modern interior of exposed white brick and large, glowing overhead lights offers a perfect complement to the restaurant's simple yet gourmet cuisine, as does a selection of Prohibition-era-inspired cocktails. Behind the bar, mixologists muddle fruit and herbs culled fresh from the farmers' market, and then mix them with gins, scotches, and whiskeys.