The patio at Cinque Terre West in Venice is petite but cozy, with a handful of tables and counter seating that offer a prime view into the bustling kitchen. Nestled onto a busy stretch of Rose Avenue, it feels smaller and even livelier than the original Cinque Terre West, a local favorite in the Gardens at Palisades strip mall in the center of the town.
But the chef gliding from one end of the kitchen to the other, pan-frying veal chops, draining fresh pasta and dimpling pans of focaccia, is still a smiling Gianbattista “Gianba” Vinzoni.
Vinzoni and his wife, Marlo, who lost multiple businesses in the Palisades fire, and whose home was also damaged, are once again starting to feel like part of a thriving community. The two reopened Cinqure Terre West, the restaurant they first introduced to the Palisades in 2019, in Venice at the end of June.
The bright blue facade is a beacon of hope at a time when many residents and business owners are still caught in the difficult process of rebuilding after the fires.
“Even before we opened, when we were working on the space, people came to welcome us to the neighborhood,” says Marlo. “They said they wanted to help us build a new community here in Venice.”
Gianba, who grew up in the Cinque Terre region of Italy, always dreamed of owning his own restaurant. After running the kitchen in places like Soho House, the Beverly Hilton and Fig and Olive, he and Marlo opened Cinque Terre West with a menu inspired by his family’s Ligurian roots. Two years later came Enoteca 5 wine bar in the same Palisades shopping center, followed by Deliziozo Cinque bakery and cafe in 2023.
The couple were aboard the last flight to land at Los Angeles International Airport on Jan. 7, 2025. They returned from their winter vacation but couldn’t go home to their condo in the Palisades. The next morning, Gianba walked from Santa Monica to the Palisades to find his entire neighborhood burning. His condo was still standing, but there were firefighters on the roof of the strip mall that housed his restaurant and wine bar.
“There was smoke damage, a lot of damage,” he says. “It was terrible. I walked to the back of the building and it was burned. Everything was gone.”
It’s difficult to quantify what was lost in both the Palisades and Eaton fires that ravaged opposite ends of our city a little more than a year ago. The fires collectively burned nearly 40,000 acres and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. People lost homes. Businesses closed forever. And a sense of community built over decades went up in smoke.
“It’s a very difficult topic for us because we didn’t just have a business in the Palisades. We lived there for 22 years,” says Gianba.
“We raised two kids there,” adds Marlo. “Their preschool, elementary school, the church where they were baptized. We loved it. All of it is gone.”
Like thousands of other fire victims, Gianba and Marlo spent hours turning their lives into inventory lists of possessions. How much was their couch worth? The TV? The windows of their condo were open when they left town before the fire. When they returned, everything needed to be thrown away.
Amid the urgent tasks of finding temporary housing and replacing cherished belongings, the couple was simultaneously dealing with the uncertain future of their restaurants.
The Vinzoni’s built a loyal base of customers over the years, and many reached out to see how they could help. Two months after the fires, someone from the Colony ghost kitchens offered a space to start cooking again, and a break on the rent. Gianba operated out of the space for a short while but longed to have his own restaurant again.
“The community even started a GoFundMe for us, which was pretty amazing,” Gianba says. “They were able to raise some funds, but one of our customers stepped in and said, ‘Look, you guys are such a part of the community, you can’t not be in business.’ ”
Marlo and Gianba moved into the former Bluestone Lane space on Rose Avenue and opened Cinque Terre West on June 23. The building’s facade features a name at the top that lists both the Palisades and Venice as locations.
“It’s great, but totally different, with a different clientele,” says Gianba. “People dine later, so the hours are a little different. It’s really a different crowd.”
There are flaky croissants, poached eggs and omelets for breakfast. And for lunch and dinner, fans of the original restaurant can relish in Gianba’s familiar regional cooking, with standouts like his grandmother’s pesto. It’s a sauce he learned to make at his family’s home in Bonassola, Italy, where his grandmother would make everything by hand or feet, including stomping grapes to make wine.
She used to pummel the fresh basil, Pecorino, pine nuts and olive oil in a mortar and pestle until a deep forest green paste formed. Gianba uses the wonderfully herbaceous sauce to coat tightly coiled spirals of fresh trofie pasta, then finishes the dish with a handful of more cheese.
His pizzas are slender, crisp discs, with amber blistered crusts and surfaces blanketed with tender artichokes or spicy salami and mushrooms.
On a chilly, late December evening, I found solace and warmth in a bowl of buridda, another one of Gianba’s signature Ligurian dishes. It’s a light tomato broth crowded with mussels, clams, scallops and shrimp. Big boulders of tomato are soft and sweet, nestled up to razor-thin, “Goodfellas” style slivers of garlic and wilted leaves of basil. It’s a bowl I’ve found myself craving in recent weeks, an anchor to something that feels steady, hearty and grounding.
Marlo and Gianba are uncertain if they will ever reopen a restaurant in the Palisades. But for now, they’re focused on rebuilding what they can.
“We see a lot of Palisadians come here,” says Marlo. “Everybody says the same thing. It feels like a piece of home when we are here with you.”
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