A charming new Brazilian-Italian restaurant has landed in Silver Lake along Sunset Boulevard in the former Spoon & Pork space. Briciola, which means “crumb” in Italian and reflects the dining room’s diminutive size, opened in mid-September with a menu
that infuses Italian dishes with Brazilian ingredients and techniques. The restaurant grew out of the ongoing partnership between chef Matteo Di Nicola and Mattia Raimond, who previously ran the Michelin-recognized Italian restaurant Cedro in Newbury Park before closing it in late 2025 to relocate to Los Angeles.
Briciola draws from both Raimond and Di Nicola’s upbringings in Brazil and Italy. Raimond’s mother is from Rio de Janeiro, and his father ran an Italian restaurant in Brazil; while he was born in Belo Horizonte, he was raised in Northern Italy, where he worked in French restaurants and studied to be a sommelier. Rome-born Di Nicola was around professional kitchens from a young age — his family operated restaurants in Italy, and he studied to be a chef and staged in the country. For Raimond, Briciola fulfills a longtime dream: to open something that blends both of their heritages with a California flair. “I’ve always wanted to create this concept,” Raimond says. “Italian-Brazilian fusion.”
With Briciola, Raimond and Di Nicola wanted to go beyond the churrascaria-style restaurants that are common in Los Angeles and spotlight more regional flavors. The menu reads predominantly Italian, with pastas and salads, but most dishes have a Brazilian twist, or draw on the history of Italian immigrants in Brazil. Starters include thinly sliced prosciutto crudo paired with sweet papaya; polenta frita, brought to Brazil by Italian immigrants; and traditional golden-brown bolinho de bacalhau, drizzled with red pepper sauce and stuffed with cod and potato. “There’s no Brazil without bolinho de bacalhau,” Raimond says.
Salads include a Caprese carioca tossed with roasted pineapple, sunflower seeds, cherry tomatoes, micro basil, and burrata, and a dill-y Cesarinha crowned with Parmesan and crunchy plantains. Larger dishes include grilled branzino in a coconut-and-bell-pepper sauce inspired by moqueca, a Brazilian seafood stew with roots in Salvador, Bahia. Cavatappi arrives topped with crunchy linguiça calabresa and smothered in a pink sauce that swaps cachaça for vodka, while a tangle of spaghetti alla nerano comes with zucchini and queijo Minas, a soft cheese from Minas Gerais, instead of provolone. Briciola also regularly rotates specials, such as carbonara or tuna carpaccio with cantaloupe. For dessert, find gelato amarena, queijo Minas with goiabada (guava paste), and banana Foster dusted with salty pecorino cheese. Currently, Briciola offers mostly natural bottles of wine from countries such as Austria, Germany, and France, but Raimond and Di Nicola are working to bring Brazilian bottles into the restaurant.
For Raimond, sharing his and Di Nicola’s food with the neighborhood has been a cherished experience. “We already have some regulars,” he says. “It’s just exciting to be here and part of the community right on Sunset.”
