Italian-American Signatures. Venice After Dark. Scopa Italian Roots is the Venice restaurant that has stayed in demand for more than 11 years by betting on discipline instead of reinvention. Chef Antonia Lofaso built this kitchen on family lineage from Naples and Calabria, formal training in New York, and a career spent in high-pressure kitchens before Scopa ever opened. The food that comes out of this room is not modern Italian. It is old-school Italian-American cooked at a professional LA standard, and it holds up the same way on a packed Saturday as it does on a quiet Monday.Founded by Mario Guddemi and Salvatore Aurora alongside Chef Lofaso, Scopa sits on the same hospitality backbone as Black Market Liquor Bar, The Chestnut Club, DAMA, and Old Lightning. This is a Venice institution built on neighborhood patronage and Italian tradition, not a chef vanity project.2905 Washington Boulevard, Venice. Open nightly.