For This Actor/Restaurant Owner, La Cava Is a Successful Sequel

Everyone knows the stereotype: The waiter hovering over your table in Los Angeles is also an actor.

But at in Sherman Oaks, it’s the owner who’s the actor—Italian-born Armando Pucci, whose Tuscan-style restaurant represents his fourth restaurant outing in Los Angeles.

“I’ve been involved in restaurants all my life,” Pucci said. “I’m not a chef, but I have a good palate.”

Pucci, who grew up in Florence, said he opened La Cava ("the Cave") because he got tired of going “over the hill” to find Italian food to his standards and liking. He offers Tuscan-influenced dishes, and the homemade ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a pink sauce is a standout. The menu follows the traditional presentation with a selection of antipasti, salads, soups, pastas and pizzas along with beef, fowl and seafood offerings.

The Ventura Boulevard restaurant is small, with a sidewalk patio, a configuration similar to La Buca, his former restaurant on Melrose Avenue. As he did there, Pucci presides over La Cava. He seats guests, jokes with diners, watches over the kitchen and occasionally sits down to share a quick lunch with one of his waiters, another Italian actor.

“Whenever you open the door, it’s like opening the curtains on the Italian stage,” Pucci said. “No matter what, the show must go on. Here you have people coming in, just like the stage, and you’re always improvising.”

Pucci came to the United States to pursue acting after he and a friend opened a restaurant in Porto Cervo, an Italian resort in Sardinia. He sold the restaurant after one summer and enrolled in acting school here.

He spent time himself as an actor/waiter, working at Toscana restaurant in Brentwood, before opening restaurants near Beverly Hills and in South Pasadena with business partners. His best-known former restaurant was La Buca, which means “the hole,” a tiny restaurant he adorned with Italian movie posters.

Meanwhile, over the years, Pucci has also had parts in a variety of TV shows and films, including Nip/Tuck, Lost, Entourage, Shadows in the Sun and Redline. He also was the Italian hunk in an I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light commercial.

He still seeks work as an actor. Because of his looks and demeanor, he is often cast as a seducer, a heavy or a doctor. But he takes equal pride in La Cava, and lives just a few blocks from it. 

“People wanted to have a neighborhood restaurant,” he said. “I have a lot of movie stars coming into my restaurant, but it’s the neighborhood that has supported me from the start.”

La Cava, 13565 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks; 818-981-1517, lacavashermanoaks.com.