In the last few years, I’ve been fascinated by the advances in vegetarian cooking. Instead of tofu being the main ingredient, chefs use other meat substitutes like tempeh, black beans, seitan, and chickpeas. Pura Vita became the first 100% plant-based Italian Restaurant in LA, and they recently opened their third restaurant in Redondo Beach.
Chef Tara Punzone is an Italian American from New York raised on traditional Southern Italian cuisine. She became a vegetarian at the tender age of 10 because of her love for animals, and by age 12, she became fully vegan.
Tara began converting all of her family’s traditional dishes to vegan versions of Southern Italian fare. For the first 20 years, Chef Punzone worked alongside many inspirational chefs, and in 2018, she opened Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It quickly became popular with the locals.
Their Redondo Beach location retains much of the trendy interior look from the previous shuttered restaurant, Enrique’s Cantina. The colorful bar is center stage with seating by the bar or along the restaurant’s perimeter. Diners can enjoy the Pacific Ocean breeze due to their large open-air windows. We opted for their outdoor patio in the back of the building.
The patio is tented, and the ground is covered with artificial turf; I thought the ivy with the wood shutters along the wall was a nice touch. Their patio is an excellent effort not to make diners feel like they are eating on an asphalt parking lot, and because it is behind the building, it nicely shields the noise from busy Catalina Ave.
Pura Vita uses imported tomatoes, olives, olive oil, tomato sauce, semolina, double zero, and almond flours from Italy, specifically from the southern regions where Punzone’s family originates — Gragnano, the birthplace of dry pasta, and Naples.
The menu consists of antipasti, salads, pasta, and scratch-made Neapolitan-style pizzas. The Diavolina ($24) is a white pizza with Calabrese sauce, cashew mozzarella, pepperoni, roasted red peppers, etc. The crust had nice char spots, and the pepperoni was almost like the real thing. Because it is plant-based, there was no grease on the pizza. Because they use spicy pepperonis, Calabrian chilis, and spicy agave, this pizza is relatively high on the heat scale.
The pasta selections are pretty popular. Made dishes allow the quality of the ingredients to shine. Such as the case with the Pomodoro ($18) – a basic spaghetti dish with tomato, fresh basil, and fresh cashew ricotta.
Bucatini seems to be trending in LA. The Calabrese ($23) is made with a spicy red pepper sauce, shaved parmigiano, and micro basil and tossed with bucatini pasta. My daughter was quite pleased with her selection.
Other pasta dishes include Linguine di Mare, Cacio di Pepe, and Lasagna. They have a Nutella Pizza ($18) with a raspberry reduction and dusted with powdered sugar for dessert.
Pura Vita, 320 S Catalina Ave, Redondo Beach; 424.304.2247; puravitalosangeles.com