Co-founder Giacomo Pizzigoni describes the pivot as a make-or-break reset after a difficult year for the Ambrogio15 restaurant group. The team closed its Michelin-recommended tasting menu restaurant Ambrogio by Acquerello in La Jolla last December and shuttered its Phoenix outpost this spring, and has wound down other side concepts as it consolidates around its core brand. A smaller Ambrogio15 location continues to operate inside the Sky Deck restaurant collective at Del Mar Highlands.
At the Pacific Beach flagship, the rebrand will preserve fan-favorite pizzas - including Prosciutto & Burrata, Salamino Piccante, and the sausage-topped Hannibal Lecter - at current prices, while adding six to seven rotating pastas developed by the company's Italian chefs. Early dishes include spaghettone with clams, black garlic, and local sea urchin, rigatoni with Calabrian ’nduja, and classics like carbonara and Italian-style Alfredo. Pizzigoni explained that four of the new pastas will be priced under $20, with the aim of serving "the best pasta in San Diego at an affordable price."
A trio of new secondi will widen the lens beyond pizza and pasta: sliced Tuscan steak, a whole sea bass in potato-zucchini crust, and a filet mignon with Barolo and black truffle sauce, expected to range from $34 to $49. The kitchen is also slated for equipment upgrades to support live-fire cooking and frying, and the team plans to import bronze die-cut durum wheat semolina pasta for specific preparations.
The move brings the company full circle. Ambrogio15 opened in 2016 with a patented, paper-thin Milano crust and a devotion to Italian ingredients, then expanded into multiple concepts - including food-hall stalls and a La Jolla wine room - before retrenching. Pizzigoni says the new PB menu folds in lessons from those chapters while recommitting to the neighborhood that sustained them from the start.
For a group that’s had to weather closures and course corrections, the October relaunch reads like a high-stakes homecoming. Pizzigoni frames it as a final chance to steady the brand and deliver the kind of approachable, ingredient-driven Italian cooking that first won Ambrogio15 its following.
Ambrogio15 Modern Trattoria & Gourmet Pizza is slated to debut October 9 at 926 Turquoise Street in San Diego's Pacific Beach. For more information, visit ambrogio15.com.
Originally published on September 2, 2025.
