The Evolution of Zach Pollack

8 Minute read

01 Dec 2025

Journalist

Over decades and across continents, Zach Pollack has shaped a culinary identity defined by technique, humility, and a growing sense of openness.

On his first night in Florence, Zach Pollack had no idea he was about to reroute his entire life. He was an architecture student then, taking in the city’s Renaissance geometry and grandeur, not thinking about kitchens at all. But dinner that evening, a simple pear and Pecorino ravioli at a trattoria in the shadow of the Duomo, hit him with the force of a quiet revelation. The dish was unexpected, sweet and savory, comforting and strange, and it lodged somewhere deeper than inspiration. It felt like recognition.

That moment became the hinge his life turned on. In the months that followed, Pollack found himself spending more time in trattorias than drafting studios, chasing flavors instead of floor plans. He wandered Florence’s markets, tasted his way through neighboring towns, and let the rhythm of Italian cooking work its way into him. By the time he had his architecture degree in hand, he already knew he was never going to use it.

Apprenticeship in Italy

Back home, Pollack started cooking under Neal Fraser at Grace. He was eager but unpolished, and Fraser tried to talk him out of culinary school. It was not discouragement, but a belief that Pollack would learn more, and learn faster, in a working kitchen. Soon after, Pollack discovered that Italian chefs shared the same philosophy. During a tour of a culinary institute near Parma, chef Romano Tamani offered something better than tuition. He offered Pollack room, board, and a spot in his two–Michelin–star kitchen at Ambasciata di Quistello.

Pollack accepted immediately and moved back to Italy. What followed were formative years in kitchens across the country: fine dining in Sicily, shifts in a salumeria in Umbria, and long days on a pig and sheep farm in Sardegna. These were not résumé stunts or bucket-list stages. They were lived-in experiences that shaped how he cooked and how he understood the responsibility of feeding people. Italy gave him technique, but it also gave him humility, patience, and a sense of belonging.

The Los Angeles Years: Ambition, Momentum, and Recognition

Returning to Los Angeles with a foundation honed in Italy, Pollack stepped into some of the city’s most influential kitchens. He worked for David Myers at Sona and Ortica, where he refined his technique and learned how to translate Italian traditions into a modern Southern California context. His cooking began to carry a confidence that reflected where he had been and where he wanted to go.

Pollack’s early collaboration with Steve Samson and Bill Chait on Sotto marked a turning point. The restaurant became a proving ground for Pollack’s abilities and a signal to the city that a new voice in Italian cooking had arrived. A few years later, he branched out on his own to open Alimento in 2014 and Cosa Buona in 2017. Both restaurants earned national recognition, landing on Jonathan Gold’s “101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles” list and GQ’s “25 Most Outstanding Restaurants” roundup. Pollack’s rise culminated in a semifinalist nod for the James Beard Foundation’s “Rising Star Chef of the Year” in 2015.

That period was defined by ambition, drive, and momentum. Pollack was still young, still pushing, still chasing the full expression of his abilities. The restaurants resonated, but they also demanded a kind of intensity that, over time, left him reassessing what he wanted from the work. When both Alimento and Cosa Buona eventually closed, it marked the end of one chapter and created the space for the next one to begin.

The Shift: Cooking with Less Ego and More Openness

The years that followed pushed Pollack to rethink what he wanted from restaurant life. After the intensity of Alimento and Cosa Buona, he began to recognize that his cooking had been shaped as much by ambition as by instinct. He had spent years proving something, both to the city and to himself. It was a period that produced excellent food and earned wide recognition, but it also left him questioning the kind of chef he wanted to be.

When he started imagining his next restaurant, Pollack approached it with a different mindset. He wanted something lighter in spirit, easier on the edges, and more grounded in hospitality than in performance. He has said that the new chapter is less driven by ego than Alimento and less confined by genre than Cosa Buona. The goal was not to reinvent Italian food or chase acclaim. It was to create a place where people could feel welcome, relaxed, and well fed.

This shift in perspective marked the beginning of Cosetta. It allowed Pollack to bring together everything he had learned in Italy, everywhere he had cooked in Los Angeles, and everything he had grown into over time. It was a chance to build a restaurant not out of urgency, but out of clarity.

Cosetta: A Chef Settles Into His Own Voice

Cosetta represents a new chapter for Pollack, one that feels steadier and more assured than anything he has built before. The restaurant sits on the edge of Santa Monica’s Ocean Park neighborhood and approaches Italian cooking through a California lens. The style is relaxed rather than rigid, guided by local produce and consciously sourced meats, and anchored by the puffy-crust pizzas that have become Pollack’s calling card.

Cosetta opened in April 2025 and quickly established itself as a neighborhood fixture. The motto, “it’s the little things,” is woven into every part of the experience, from the warm service to the details on the plate.

The space itself mirrors that shift in tone. The semi-covered patio offers an easygoing lunch option, while the main dining room brings together a slanted ceiling, arch and column accents, earthy tones, olive trees, and exposed brick. Pollack immediately recognized the potential of the freestanding former Coffee Bean building, especially when he discovered the large parking lot. The convenience felt meaningful, a practical gesture to guests who might otherwise circle Santa Monica for twenty minutes before a meal.

The menu reflects Pollack’s interest in balance and approachability. Raw bar items, salads, small plates, pizzas, and Milanesi cutlets form the backbone of the offerings. Standout dishes include Sicilian ponzu scallops, bloomin’ radicchio, the house-baked bread with burrata, and the La Spagnolo Ricco pizza made with uni butter and a tin of Spanish clams served sidecar style. The beverage program follows the same philosophy. Drinks like the Sasa, with caramelized artichokes, cynar, Pecorino, and Rinomato Americano, echo the quiet technique that drives the food.

Cosetta succeeds because it is not trying to be anything other than what it is. It is a restaurant shaped by maturity rather than momentum, designed for both casual drop-ins and destination diners, and rooted in a desire to make people feel well cared for. In a city that is constantly reinventing itself, Cosetta is a reminder that evolution in the kitchen does not always mean reinvention. Sometimes it simply means cooking with a clearer sense of who you have become.

The Human Layer: Family, Curiosity, and What Comes Next

Outside the restaurant, Pollack remains rooted in the rhythms that first drew him to cooking. He spends time in the kitchen at home with his family, often returning to the same instincts that shaped him in Florence and across Italy. Travel still fuels his creativity. He seeks out markets, small restaurants, and regional dishes that offer new textures and ideas, the same way he once wandered through Florence tasting everything he could find.

This part of his life does not announce itself loudly, but it animates the work. Cosetta reflects a chef who is more interested in connection than in achievement, more grounded in everyday pleasures than in the pressure to be constantly new. Pollack’s curiosity has not faded, but it has settled into a different register. It shows up in the details of a dish, the balance of a cocktail, or the way he greets guests at the door.

Cosetta is the restaurant of a chef who knows who he is and what he wants to say. It is shaped by years of learning, traveling, opening, closing, and beginning again. Pollack’s work today carries the clarity of someone who has found his place, not through a single moment of inspiration, but through the steady accumulation of experience.

The Chef

Zach Pollack is the Los Angeles–born chef behind Santa Monica’s Cosetta, known for blending Italian technique with California ingredients after formative years cooking throughout Italy.

01 Dec 2025