STEVE SAMSON’S restaurant in downtown’s City Market South complex, now in its sixth year, has been slowly moving away from its original premise as a reclamation of his childhood spent in foodobsessed Bologna. The menu of blended Italian-Californian sensibilities was never doctrinaire, but in a town teeming with pasta and pizza restaurants I valued the regional specificity. Traces of Bologna remain in two staple dishes: the wonderful minestra nel sacco, a soup of Parmigiano-Reggiano dumplings cooked in a cloth bag and served in chicken and beef broth; and tagliatelle al ragù, in which the sauce clings to the strands without smothering them. Dough maestro Francesco Allegro, a native of Puglia, ensures that the concise, seasonally shifting pasta options continue to be a focal point. Share two or three of them, followed by the grigliata — a duet of bone-in pork chop and sausage that sings of char and salt and succulence.

• 1124 San Julian St., Los Angeles, (213) 749-1099, rossoblula.com

Freshly grated Parmigiano finishes a plate of tortelloni at Rossoblu.