Azzurri v. Les Bleues
“Today’s tom sawyer,
He gets high on you,
And the energy you trade,
He gets right on to the friction of the day.”
Tom Sawyer, Rush
The friction of the day (and dinner hour) plays out between classic French cooking and the new ways of approaching the loose collection of cuisines we tend to call “Italian”. For a long while, I thought French food would be where the action was here in SF. Living here by the Bay, my Russian Hill neighborhood is composed of a lower and upper arrondissement: it’s seen a veritable potpourri of French bistros popping up. France has, in my life, always set the bar for the very finest in wines; so, unsurprisingly, the cuisine of France was always the pinnacle to which top chefs aspired. Heck, the very words “cuisine” and “chef” are French. I speak some French, having lived in Paris, and I [cut my teeth on Burgundy wines]. I even went out on the limb and predicted that San Francisco food, perhaps to counter popular Freedom Fry sentiment, was “going French.”
When Les Bleues made their improbable way back to the FIFA World Cup Final, I thought sans doute that we were finding ourselves in the midst of a new French culinary Revolution. Especially since the Final was France v. Italy, and all through the tournament, no team seemed to me more despicable or less deserving of success than the Italians, known for their sky-blue shirts in most athletic competitions (hence their nickname: the Azzurri). During said Final, there came the head-butt (the butt heard round the world). And what do you know, but it was almost Shakespearian how, in an instant, my allegiance to the French evaporated (how very French of me, you say), and suddenly, it seemed that even though “poor” Materazzi kind of flopped on the butt itself, now Italian azure was more worthy of victory than tired, nostalgic, and superstitious French blue. See, food at its most interesting reflects the mood of the times, our zeitgeists. So, French Laundry may well be the greatest restaurant in California, and Auberge du Soleil may have the best appetizers, and 2005 Bordeaux may be the finest reds of the past 50 years: but, with the flick of a forehead, my stomach suddenly yearns for tastes of Italy.
Italian food in San Francisco flat out rocks. Much of it is fairly basic. And despite all those Jean-come-lately bistros, there are loads of pasta houses and Pomodoros ready to serve you a hearty Italian meal. I live literally above North Beach, so I know them.
More interesting, however, is what I will call neo-Italian, but others have dubbed Ital-ifornian. Whatever you call it, it involves taking classic dishes from regions in Italy, using traditional spices and recipes, and then jazzing them up by using fresh Left Coast ingredients. In terms of interesting dining, several SF Italian eateries deserve your dinero. Here are a handful that are practicing the craft and style of neo-Italian/Itali-fornian to nigh on perfection. I say “nigh on” because one of the differences between France and Italy qua cuisine is that the French truly believe in perfection as attainable, while Italians would rather relegate perfection to religion, and settle for well-executed…
On Polk St., which between Broadway and Union is a bastion of French and French influenced cuisines, there are two enticing Italian places worth paying attention to, both owned by the same dude (chef/owner Ruggero Gadaldi, who also owns the Last Supper Club here in SF as well). The first is Antica Trattoria, on the corner of Union, which is Gadaldi’s modern take on Etruscan cuisine. What, you may wonder, is Etruscan cuisine?
Here’s what an Italian winery, Castello Banfi, has to say about it on its Web-site:
Their recipes showed they cooked fish stuffed with rosemary. They also roasted pork with rosemary or cooked pork liver with bay leaves. Honey was used to sweeten food and salt to preserve it. Meats were prepared on spits and grills; saucepans were used for boiling, and, of course, ovens for baking. Paintings found in a tomb near Orvieto depict a busy Etruscan kitchen. Beef, venison, hare, even a brace of ducks hang from hooks in the open air. One cook holds a frying pan over an oven’s flames, another readies a saucepan, while vessels brimming with sauces and gravies stand nearby. [Link]
Basically, Etruscan means “of Ancient Rome, before the Roman Empire”. The Etruscans were close to their gods, so the stories went, and sex and food were always intermingled. They were a passionate people, so it seems. Anyway, Gadaldi interprets truly classic Etruscan styles, and has given them a modern update. His ragus of boar, his rabbits, his meats in general are all stellar, and nothing is priced higher than $20. His use of capers and vinegars is exquisite, and I don’t know if there’s a better carpaccio in the city than this. I have never had a bad meal at Antica Trattoria, and that’s not for lack of attempts.
The service is friendly, and earthy, and if I were Italian, I might even tell you it feels like home. There is no bar, and hence only wines and beer are available, but the list is thoughtful, and you can cross Union to Tonic if you need a cocktail before dinner.
Less than two blocks away is Pesce, which is Gadaldi’s take on Venetian cuisine. It features cicchetti, which are essentially tapas: smaller plates of food. “little tastes.” But Pesce does serve main courses. And some of the best penne arrabiatta in town (a dish I confess an almost un-natural fondness for…). And I would be remiss if I did not mention the Dungenness crab linguini, which, when in season, I cannot get enough of. Pesce features a full bar, with good specialty drinks, and a host most excellent (he is also its manager), in Reza Esmaili. I give the smoked fish a try, and the oyster shooters (I normally like my oysters simply chilled on the half-shell, with lemon, but theirs is a particularly well loaded shooter). Pesce’s wine list is by no means as extensive as Antica’s, but on Wednesday nights, if you buy a bottle at Wm. Cross Wine Merchants next door, Reza will usually waive any corkage charge. So you got that.
Over in the Marina, the way to go for neo-Italian is A16. It’s a route in Italy’s southern Campania region (which I know very little about, but am keen to ride on). A16 has the finest selection of Italian wines in San Francisco, and some of the most knowledgeable wine people in the city: led by the ineffable co-owner Shelley Lindgren, who has put together an incredible wine list of 60% Italian and 40% American wines. She also has an awesome team of sommeliers in Skye La Torre and Andrew Mosblech: any of these three can not only help you find the right wine to pair with your order, but they would be a tremendous sommelier in any setting. A16 boasts world-class service. Now the food can be a bit hit-and-miss sometimes, though that may be somewhat attributable to their new executive chef, Nate Appleman, who is all of 26, still “feeling his oats”. What can’t miss are their pizzas: Nate and his predecessor, Chris Hille, were trained by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, making them some of the very few certified pizzaiolos in the US. Nate’s got game, and he knows his meats, having trained in his “youth” as a butcher. They smoke some salumis right on the premises. In general, however, I lean towards pizzas and pastas, and then allow my companions to ride rough-shod over the menu, ordering as they will. In the past, lamb has alas let me and my tablemates down.
Nevertheless, I love the vibe at A16: it feels like Italy, more than any other place in SF. It may be in the Marina, but it is closer to Naples (a city to which I have yet been””but hey, it seems like Naples would feel). And then I sit at the bar, or back in the dining room with the open kitchen, and I revel in the theater of dining. Food is not just about taste: it’s about the taste of the people with whom one is dining. Dining alone, truly alone, with no one else around, never fully satisfies me. Dining by myself at a place like A16, I never feel alone””it’s always bustling, the staff is always there to make you feel, if not “at home”, then at least welcome (my home rarely has so many beautiful people in it). It’s fresh, in a way that makes it San Franciscan, but it draws on the classics of Campania (which I will confirm when I get there, how close it may be to Napolitan dining…).
All the way across town, in southern Noe Valley, a part of town that barely counts as being in San Francisco, sits the new La Ciccia, which means “belly” in Sardinian. Sardinia is an island off the Western Coast of Italy, very rugged. They have their own language, and their own cuisine. Of course, they have pastas and pizzas, and they use a lot of coarse salt. Indeed, coarse would be a good word to describe the cooking at La Ciccia, and not just because Sardinia lies but a few kilometers south of Corsica. Another word would be salty. La Ciccia’s wine list is an absolute gem, which makes sense since its chef/owner Massimiliano Conti has spent the better part of the past two decades in the wine business as a sommelier and importer. Service is decent, though they have a lot of tables to cover, and the place seems fairly packed (we were there after 9 on a Wednesday, and every table was occupied). We had a delicious cabbage salad with marinated Vidalia onions: one of my favorite salads I’ve had recently. And a good, if chewy and not so crisp pizza a la Sarda (which adds pecorino and capers to your basic Margherita). And do try the signature tagliolini with artichokes and bottarga””fish roe.
La Ciccia’s got a lot of Sardinia in it, it seems (I’ve only been to Corsica, but now I am inspired to visit Sardinia). La Ciccia strikes me as an excellent date place, out of the way, romantic, the walls all azure. And Mas’s lovely wife, Lorella Degan, also goes to great lengths to make her guests feel comfortable. It made me want to romance someone. In general, Ital-ifornian cuisine excites me. Where French bistro food nowadays seems more about comfort, and a longing for a past I never really had, Neo-Italian makes me hungry for the future: for what’s next…