North Park's year-old Cori Pastificio Trattoria wins global restaurant award

North Park’s year-old Cori Pastificio Trattoria wins global restaurant award

Accursio Lota, owner of Cori Pastificio Trattoria in North Park, in a vegetable garden.

San Diego Union-Tribune

Jan. 13, 2021 10:20 AM PT

Cori Pastificio Trattoria, which celebrated local chef Accursio Lota opened one year ago in North Park, is one of seven international restaurants that won special awards this week in Gambero Rosso’s 2021 Top Italian Restaurants Awards.

Cori Pastificio won in the “New Opening of the Year” category of the 4-year-old awards program created by Gambero Rosso, an Italian food and wine magazine. It was the only American restaurant to earn special recognition. The others are in China, Japan, France, Scotland and Canada. The judges note the restaurant’s “perfectly stuffed pastas,” classic dishes, well-curated wine list and fair prices.

Raised in Sicily, Lota started culinary school at 14. After working at the Four Seasons Hotel in Milan, Lota spent 6 ½ years as executive chef at Solare Ristorante in Liberty Station. Four years ago, he won the 2017 Barilla World Pasta Championships in Italy. Cori Pastificio, which Lota opened with his wife, Corinne, specializes in authentic Sicilian and Italian cuisine. Visit: coripasta.com.

Pam Kragen writes about restaurants and new food products for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Email her at pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com.

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Pam Kragen

Pam Kragen is the arts and entertainment editor, as well as the chief theater, dining and opera critic, for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She joined the Union-Tribune staff in October 2012 after 27 years at the North County Times, where she served as the Arts & Features Editor, as well as the paper’s longtime arts writer and theater and opera critic. She is the co-founder of the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from San Diego State University and completed fellowships in theater criticism at the University of Southern California and opera-classical music criticism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. And in 2022, she was chosen as one of the fellows in the prestigious National Critics Institute, run by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterf, Conn.