My first visit to Sassetta was impromptu, which I thought meant that I would be eating pizza alone. But friends materialized—“You? Here? In the Design District?”—and, before we knew it, we were sharing a crudo over a glass of rosé, both of which we all later agreed were the best things we’d had all week.

I didn’t think there was a need for a second Italian restaurant in the Headington Companies’ firmament. But Sassetta argues otherwise, all rubicund hues and flirty spritzes. In the Design District, far from Headington’s downtown hub and its Rome-inspired Americano, it is retro and casually chic, a dream in gold and Aperol.