Long Beach Food Scene Week is currently running through Aug. 9, celebrating our city’s ever-evolving food culture. To uplift our chefs, restaurateurs, managers, bartenders, line cooks, servers, bussers, and everyone else who makes Long Beach hospitality what it is, I will be highlighting specific participants—like this focus on Due Fiori.
When Daniel Flores and Gianna Johns announced they would transform a space on Retro Row into an Italian restaurant, the expectations were understandably high.
The building on 4th, between Temple and Molino, has long been one of Long Beach’s beloved dining rooms. It was the base for Chef Philip Pretty’s culinary launch in Long Beach before scoring a Michelin star for Heritage and opening Olive & Rose. It hosted, for all too briefly, Shady Grove Foods’ first and only brick-and-mortar.
Barely a year and a half after opening, Due Fiori has done something that many restaurants spend years trying to accomplish: It no longer feels new. It feels, in a sense, long embedded in the community—something akin to what their other endeavor, Baby Gee, quickly achieved. With new summer items and a spaghetti-and-meatballs LBFSW special running all week, it is easy to grasp why Due Fiori has grasped hearts.
Due Fiori feels like it’s long existed in Long Beach—a feat most restaurateurs dream of.
There are restaurants people seek out because they’re trending—an all the more apparent, if not outright eye-rolling reality in our Influencers in the Wild era. And surely, Due Fiori, simply because they are popular, will catch many of these influencers. But much more, there are restaurants that quietly weave themselves into the rhythm of a neighborhood. Due Fiori has become decidedly the latter.
Walk through its doors on a Wednesday evening, a Saturday brunch, or a warm weekend night, and the room feels lived in. Couples split a bottle of Italian wine on the patio. Groups of friends order square pizzas for the table. Solo diners linger over pasta at the bar. Friends begin the evening there before wandering a few doors down to Baby Gee—or end it there after cocktails.
It has become part of the fabric of 4th Street rather than simply another addition to it.
That success stems from understanding that neighborhood restaurants are built as much on consistency as creativity. If there is one thing to respect so deeply about Gianna and Daniel’s efforts—something every restaurateur should analyze—is their dedication to their brand. Like Baby Gee, Due Fiori is so distinctly itself while being perpetually consistent that diners don’t felt cheated or misled.
Building Italian-American classics from a minimal menu..
The food of Due Fiori is precisely the type of Italian-American fare that people want from spaces that were decked out in Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling and white-and-red checkered tablecloths back in the day.
Its Caesar salad has quietly become one of the city’s best: crisp romaine coated with an assertive, outright decadent amount of Parmigiano—white, fluffy mountains—with every single groove of the leaves slathered in a dressing that melds anchovy and lemon with salt bombs.
The pappardelle limone remains a lesson in restraint, relying on butter, citrus, and perfectly cooked ribbons of pasta rather than unnecessary embellishment.
Then there are the now-signature square pizzas, whose beautifully blistered sourdough crust occupies that delicious space somewhere between Sicilian and Detroit styles without committing itself entirely to either. They are the sort of dishes that transform first-time visitors into regulars because they become cravings rather than curiosities…
Their famed spaghetti and meatballs? They’re being served throughout LBFSW on the daily.
…and then there is their spaghetti and meatballs. Usually only available on Wednesdays, the space’s much-loved take on the Italian-American classic are available every day until Aug. 9.
Due Fiori’s summer items reflect that consistency…
To the point. Well-made. Simple done right. Due Fiori’s newest additions for summer rely on the richness of this year’s farming stock—corn and melon have been seasonal stand-outs this summer—and classic Italian pairings.
Figs & Speck ($17): Farmers market figs | whipped ricotta | speck | saba | mint | lemon zest
Heirloom Tomato ($18): Roasted corn | pickled cucumbers | red onion | mint | dill | golden balsamic vinaigrette (Add burrata +$6)
Prosciutto e Melone ($18): Farmers market melons | olive oil | black pepper | basil (Add burrata +$4)
Shrimp Fra Diavolo ($18): Cherry tomatoes | prosciutto | garlic | Calabrian chili | cilantro | black lime
Why Due Fiori works—and why that matters in an industry plagued with uphill battles.
Gianna and Daniel grasp something very evident at both Baby Gee and Due Fiori: do fewer things, but execute them exceptionally well. Instead of chasing trends or overextending itself with encyclopedic menus, Due Fiori remains tightly edited.
Just as important is the atmosphere the pair have cultivated. Baby Gee succeeded because it never attempted to be exclusive despite its industry acclaim. The pair built a bar where hospitality outweighed hype. And, even more, quality never translated into pretension. Due Fiori carries that exact same DNA into a restaurant setting.
There is also something quietly significant about what Due Fiori represents for Long Beach. Daniel and Gianna doubled down on the city they already helped shape through Baby Gee, investing in another independently owned concept that reflects Long Beach’s own personality rather than attempting to imitate somewhere else. In doing so, they preserved a restaurant address that has served the neighborhood for years while giving it an entirely new identity rooted in California hospitality and Italian comfort.
Perhaps that’s why Due Fiori already feels like it’s always been there. Not because it’s recreating nostalgia, but because it understands what makes neighborhood restaurants endure while firmly gripping and owning their identity.
Great food certainly matters. So do thoughtful drinks and beautiful spaces. But what ultimately transforms a restaurant into a community staple is creating somewhere people want to return to again and again.
Due Fiori is located at .
