Niche home styled restaurant

I remember going down here one time with my family to eat at a restaurant. We couldn’t find anything so then we drove down some road (maybe in Carpinteria even) and stumbled upon some sort of small bar that was entirely raw brick on the exterior. Children were with us so we skipped it, walked down the sidewalk and not even a block away we found some other restaurant that looked like someone’s house, only we knew it was a restaurant because it had a little dimly lit sign on the front yard that said its name (it was like 5-6PM). We walked up some stepping stones and entered inside, the interior was just one area with a huge couch that went along the wall with some tables of course and chairs. The kitchen was visible the second you walked in to the right, and it had photos. There was an outdoor area I didn’t get to. It was definitely a family owned place and it had extraordinary Italian food and even some sort of desert that used glass sugar