Here’s Why LA’s Sestina Should Be Your New Go-To Wine, Pasta and Pizza Bar

Los Angeles is known for being a vegan foodie paradise. And even during the pandemic, there was heavy momentum and interest in the plant-based space with brands launching and restaurants opening.  Last year, LA’s Westside dining scene was gifted withSESTINA, a pasta, and pizza wine bar in Downtown Culver City. SESTINA is the brainchild of Matthew Kenney, who now has more than 45 restaurants worldwide.

You can find SESTINA on the east coast in New York, and in Los Angeles in Culver City, with a Century City location coming soon. We visited the SESTINA in Culver City to find out what makes it the perfect go-to for Italian comfort food.

The star of the SESTINA show is its pasta. Made from scratch daily, the selection is quite broad-ranging and includes some standouts like the pesto fusilli and the truffle tagliatelle. . You can also watch pasta being made through a glass window (on the Washington St. side of the building). Other “not pasta” items include traditional Italian fare reimagined to be completely vegan, like Caprese, arancini, and an assortment of pizzas.

While some Kenney restaurants fetch a more fine-dining appropriate price point, SESTINA keeps dishes under $20. And even though the menu is not necessarily set up to be family-style, these plant-based masterpieces are begging to be shared. You can easily order a pizza, a few antipasti, and pasta to share and be pleasantly satiated.

SESTINA, like all Kenney restaurants, has a carefully curated wine list. You’ll find a nice assortment of Italian wines, and some more regional, most of which are organic and/or biodynamic, and, of course, all vegan. With Downtown Culver City shutting down the main Culver City Blvd. corridor to traffic, restaurants have been able to set up string-lined tents in front of their buildings. SESTINA’s outdoor patio, and extended dining in the street-turned-secondary-patio, make dining comfortable and spacious.

SESTINA in Culver City is one of a number of other Kenney-founded Southern California restaurants including  Plant Food + Wine; Double Zero; XMarket (formerly New Deli) in Venice Beach; VEG’D in Orange County; Ladurée by MK in Beverly Hills; Make Out coffee shop in Culver City; and Hungry Angelina in Long Beach.

Find more LA plant-based fare by checking out our guide to vegan food in Los Angeles.