Pork loin stuffed with rabbit sausage and wrapped with speck. Photos by Brian Addison.

Michael’s on Naples has long been considered one of Long Beach’s best restaurants. Nestled in one of the city’s most beautiful and affluent areas, the restaurant’s knack for providing continually contemporary, high-end Italian food has garnered the joint accolade after accolade (including the now-famous year that Zagat called it the best Italian restaurant and the second-best restaurant period in Southern California).

It goes past their seemingly simplistic presentation that isn’t simple at all. It goes beyond their Meyer lemon-cured branzino (European sea bass), delicately laid on top of a crostini. It surpasses way they add bits of hazelnut brittle and droplets of basil oil over their beet and apple salad. It goes much past how they stuff a pork loin with housemade rabbit sausage and then wrap the loin in smokey speck.

It’s the people, offering what is genuinely an escape from the concrete urbanism that, though beautiful its own right, can also be stifling. And of course, it’s the people’s passion.

After all, Executive Chef Dave Coleman (who also heads the Italian steak that is Chianina down the street) isn’t even Italian.

“There are those people who still believe that only mustachio-sportin’ men with their Nonna’s secret recipes are the only ones that could possibly make great Italian food,” Coleman said. “I am a poor Irish kid from Orange County if anyone cares to take note.”

Early in his career, Coleman dabbled in a variety of cuisines after training at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco but eventually learned what many chefs never learn: technique trumps cuisine.

“The raw pasta, the doughs, the sauce, the butchery, the charcuterie—it all come before the plate,” Coleman said. “When you sit and enjoy a simple handmade pasta with simple sausage or a botargo and some amazing Barolo, you are content.”

Of course, everything at Michael’s looks effortless, from that pasta to that Barolo—a brilliant slice of manipulation if there ever was one. But just like Coleman in the kitchen, the front of house is the other side of the coin to a great restaurant. Surely, a food truck may provide you phenomenal food but the moment you turn around, the atmosphere is something the hood around you dictates. Even more, beyond the façade of it all—the china, the servers, the décor—front management looks to purveyors to bring chefs (and therefore customers) the best food possible.

Squid-ink pasta with fresh sea urchin and garbonzo beans.

Enter Massimo Arrone, the general manager of Michael’s on Naples. The man is no stranger to the world that revolves around running a restaurant: his family ran La Barca, a seafood-focused grubbery in Imperia, small town on the northwestern coast of Italy along the Riviera dei Fiori in Liguria. It was there he learned to develop relationships with the local fisherman to assure that his family’s restaurant would secure the freshest catch. His duties expanded, as Arrone found himself working with farmers for produce, butchers for meat, vineyards for wine…

Arrone entered the world of fine dining when, following high school, he scored an assistantship at the famed Grand Hotel in San Remo, learning about food, wine, and of course, ambiance. With a sponge-like grasp of knowledge, Arrone found himself learning English and working in famed joints like La Collina and New York’s spectacular Pappardella.

“That chance vacation to New York in 1996 was what changed my life forever,” Arrone said. “I met my future bride, made connections, learned English, secured my jobs [at La Collina, Vespa and Pappardella]… When I moved to Long Beach in 2007 and met Michael Dene [owner of Michael’s on Naples], I knew our shared passion for fine wines, exceptional cuisine, and uncompromising quality in all aspects of fine dining experience was going to be a game changer.”

Game changer indeed: Arrone single-handedly connected the restaurant with some of the nation’s leading purveyors of high quality products. We’re talking ducks from Liberty Farm. Seafood from Norpac Hawaii. Pigs, lambs, quails, and rabbits from Devil’s Gulch Farm and Broken Arrow Ranch.

“Everyday I worked on establishing a relationship with customers, to create followers where they ask for more everyday, to discover what they loved,” Arrone said. “When people ask me if I knew this restaurant was going to be as special as it is, well, my response is obviously yes because we are doing everything right—from the purchasing and cooking style to the service without being pretentious.”

In other words, it’s uniquely fine dining done Long Beach-style. And for that, we’re not just thankful but a bit indebted toward Michael’s on Naples: removed from the small allotment of typical fine-dining fare we had in the city beforehand, this restaurant has captured the imagination of its chef and manager to ignite the incoming wave of culinary greatness.

This, of course, wasn’t always the case, as Arrone distinctly remembers early patrons predicting the demise of the restaurant should they not serve endless breadstick-style, pseudo-Italian food.

“Michael’s on Naples couldn’t be who we are without the support from all the local customers—but for sure no one thought we were going to make it,” Arrone said. “I remember the beginnings being a roller coaster of sorts. We had to learn to believe in ourselves and to keep the identity we wanted, no matter what the bad feedback was. I remember a specific customer about six years ago telling me, directly to my face, that we would close in six months time if we didn’t put Chicken Marsala and Fettuccine Alfredo on our menu.”

Thank the culinary gods it never became Olive Garden by the canals.

Michael’s on Naples is located at 5620 E 2nd St. For reservations, call 562-439-7080.

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