In a city replete with excellent pizzerias and bakeries, Nancy Silverton’s focaccia di Recco remains one of the most impressive feats of flour, water and dairy. It’s a style of bread she fell in love with in the Ligurian town of Recco, then obsessed over for two years before introducing it to the menu at Chi Spacca. It’s made with dollops of salty cheese between two gossamer sheets of dough. A special pan is used to ensure the top of the bread is a bubbly, crackerlike landscape with boulders of cheese hiding beneath the surface. You will spot one on nearly every table. What follows will undoubtedly be a procession of meat in its many glorious forms.

The affettati misti board is a long row of fat-speckled and -rimmed slices of cured pork alongside disks of fried pig’s trotter. The bistecca Fiorentina is a staggering 50 ounces of steak. Silverton and executive chef Armen Ayvazyan have a knack for delivering maximum impact with little to no flash. A recent special of grilled mackerel over Umbrian lentils dressed with olive oil was, just like the focaccia, the trotters and everything else on the table, stupefyingly great. — J.H.

6610 MELROSE AVE., LOS ANGELES, (323) 297-1133 l CHISPACCA.COM