Regional Italian Cooking in the DC Area

[Pontormo]

While Galileo no longer is on the tip of everyone's tongue on this thread, as some of you may know, the chef is from Piemonte, a northern region of Italy that is currently being explored in a thread you will find in Italy & Italian Cuisine:

This Year's Resolution

I should explain that this new thread devoted to the cooking of various regions of Italy was inspired by a terrific thread by eGullet member Kevin72 who spent a year exploring the food of Italy, region by region.

The popularity of that thread has inspired a new collective effort in which interested eGullet members are learning more about the foods and dishes of regions that Kevin was not able to explore, or to return to provinces of Italy whose riches deserve further representation.

I am posting this, in part, to bring this effort to your attention.

However, in conjunction with that forum's thread, I would be interested in anything residents of this area have to say about local resources or trends in restaurants.

I am reminded somewhat of the movie, Big Night where there was a valient attempt to teach the meatball-and-spaghetti crowd about the pleasures of risotto (a specialty of Piemonte, by the way) and the elegance and diversity of Italian cooking. While Silver Spoon is gettting a lot of hype, one trend is towards publishing cookbooks that focus on specific regions, replete with bibliography, and often information about the cultural history of that region as it impinges upon food. Now that we are a long way away from the problems that plagued the characters played by Tucci and Shalhoub, can it be said that restaurants are following the same trends that publishers are? Are we beyond a distinction between Northern and Southern Italian food?

For example, I have mentioned Galileo above. I understand the restaurant has its own cookbook, filled with typos, which nonetheless offers recipes that represent Piedmontese cooking. For those of you have eaten there, have you noticed that the menu reflects the chef's regional loyalties? What about Dino's where Venice's winged lion serves as its logo, yet diners seem to praise the prosciutto plate more than anything else?

If you have any tips for shopping for hard-to-find ingredients from specific regions, please share.

If you'd like, please send me a personal message if you intend to participate in the year-long venture on Italian Cooking. (Note the reference to cheese at Whole Foods in the thread linked above.)

Edited January 7, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Cucina]

I think the best and most authentic Italian cuisine in D.C. is Al Tiramisu. You could say I'm biased, because I did some consulting work for Luigi about a year ago, but that was only after having become a regular at his restaurant since 2003.

I had the good fortune to take two wonderful trips to Italy in 2003, and by the time fall came around, I was having post partem food cravings in the extreme. In particular, I was craving White Truffles with risotto. I decided to go to Al Tiramisu because I had been there before with a date (bad date, threw him away after that) but remembered the food to be superb. It also has a small, intimate bar at the front of the restaurant where you can eat alone and not feel weird about doing so in the least. The risotto with white truffles that I had at Al Tiramisu was in my mind, an exact replica of the same dish I had in Rome at Ristorante Girarrosto Fiorentino. I have been a regular ever since. I've eaten just about everything on and off the menu at least once and have never been disappointed. The quality is consistent.

What I also like about Al Tiramisu is that Luigi and his staff treat you beautifully and you always feel very at home. If you come regularly, they remember you by name and they really do become your friends. If you're having a craving and it's not on the menu, Luigi will make something special for you. It just doesn't get much better than that.

Having said that, I decided this fall in the interests of fairness that I needed to broaden my horizons and see how other places around town stacked up.

I decided to try Tosca first since everyone was raving about it at egullet a few years back. They did not have white truffles the first time I was there, but the chef managed to make as respectable linguine dish as you can with the canned variety and I can't say I had a complaint. When I returned a week later when they promised to have them in, I was disappointed. They were not too generous with the truffles and they were not particularly aromatic - although they did shave them in front of me and the linguine had too much butter in it where it left a pool at the bottom and just made the whole thing too heavy. They do however, have a good theater menu and the restaurant is very smartly decorated.

I have also tried Gallileo a couple of times at the bar - once a truffled risotto and the other time a truffled linguine. They were both superb, and they were generous with the truffles and the quality was good although they do not shave them in front of you. They are just very neatly arranged on top which seems odd to me. A date also recently took me to the Laboratorio (my dating prospects are improving!) and it definitely lives up to its reputation. On the whole, the tasting menu was wonderful and unique and the wine parings well done. The duck liver was one of the best most delicate and flavorful things I've ever tasted. The white truffle ice cream on the other hand, is to be avoided at all costs. We were seated towards the far end of the Laboratorio so it was not as easy to watch Chef Roberto cook, but that was fine with me because it was more intimate and romantic. The staff was attentive without being overly so. But we never got to meet the Chef although I suppose we could have introduced ourselves.

I also recently tried Bocaccio in Baltimore. The food is exceptional and also a good value. I had a porcini risotto followed by a veal chop that practically took up my entire plate. Both were exceptional. The staff is also very attentive and well informed making good suggestions not only on the food but on the wine. The portion sizes are very generous - it would be entirely possible to share and walk away full. The chef came out at the end of the meal and introduced himself. There is something about this type of personalization that just makes the evening.

I've also eaten at Landini's in Alexandria a couple of times recently. I favor their pastas and meat dishes over their seafood dishes, but the food has been consistently good and the staff is exceptionally friendly and helpful.

Next on the list will be I Ricci and then possibly Maestro. I have never been to Maestro and haven't been to I Ricci in several years. I also plan to attend a couple of the cooking classes at Casa Italiana. At $50/per person for food and wine, they are the best deal in town and they have a wonderful line up of chefs participating over the next few months.

As for cooking myself, Santa brought me the Silver Spoon for Chistmas and I'll be taking it for a test drive on Tuesday. I'll try to participate in the year of Italian cooking at egullet too.

Thank you Pontormo for starting this thread and for pointing out the other. If anyone has any interest in joining me as I eat my way through D.C./VA/MD's Italian restaurants, perhaps we could organize a group with regular outings.

[Pontormo]

You're welcome, Cucina.

I am not sure how much you've eaten around while in Italy, but in the rounds you've made of the D.C. area, were you able to judge whether the restaurants you visited honored a specific region's cooking?

Or were they more generic: Italian vs. Iranian, or Northern Italy vs. Southern Italy?

[Cucina]

I am not sure how much you've eaten around while in Italy, but in the rounds you've made of the D.C. area, were you able to judge whether the restaurants you visited honored a specific region's cooking? 

Or were they more generic: Italian vs. Iranian, or Northern Italy vs. Southern Italy?

←

Well, I ate very well when I was in Italy but I have not eaten my way through Italy yet (although it's on the "to do" list!) so I am a far FAR far cry from being an expert on regional cooking. In fact, put me in the novice category.

But I am somewhat of a marketing expert (although not for restaurants) and there is a practical reason why it might be rare to find restaurants that are absolutely purist when it comes to regional cuisine (with the exceptions being a) popular regions like Tuscany where Americans travel frequently and the food is more familiar to the palate than perhaps other areas or, b) areas of the country that have a large enough immigrant/expat population with the means to support that level of specialization).

The practical reason is very simple: customers - many of whom will lack the sophisticated or dicerning palate of the more well traveled/well fed but none the less, have an appreciation for well prepared food. (that would be me and probably the majority of any restaurant's patrons) And you gotta have customers - preferably the repeat kind to stay in business.

I think to really understand what a chef is trying to do with his or her restaurant, you have to have a conversation about it. I've had many such conversations with Luigi. He hails from the Basilicata region and so you will find southern Italian dishes at Al Tiramisu as well as dishes very specific to Basilicata. But I think he would cringe at the idea of being labeled for one thing. His primary interest is well prepared, authentic Italian cuisine prepared traditionally, so the menu/specials also reflect northern Italian specialties as well. (For example, if he tried to take the smoked tuscan cheese with grilled vegetables off the menu, there would be a customer revolt).

So...(my long winded reply winding up!)...depending on what you're interested in from a regional perspective, whether it's authentic or inventive or a little of both, my thinking is that there are many factors beyond a chef's origins that influence their menu as well as whether or not it's any good. And if you can put together a large enough party (probably in the 8-10 range but perhaps less depending on the restaurant), many chefs would develop a special tasting menu to your party's preferences that would give you a better idea of who truly has a mastery on the regions or dishes that interest you.

[jm chen]

What about Dino's where Venice's winged lion serves as its logo, yet diners seem to praise the prosciutto plate more than anything else?

I think to really understand what a chef is trying to do with his or her restaurant, you have to have a conversation about it.

I have had several such conversations with Dean Gold, and I have no doubt that he would be happy to have them with any interested party at the restaurant, and if you really want to survey Italian cooking in DC I think you definitely need to visit his place. He wants the restaurant to be an enoteca , so very much about the wine, and with cicchetti , snacks, as the Venetians would have them.

Okay, I went to the Dino website to check the spelling, and saw this, so I might as well just paste it in:

Welcome to Dino, a rustic Italian restaurant and enoteca in Cleveland Park, Washington DC. When Kay and I travel to Italy, we love to go to wine bars and small family style restaurants featuring simply prepared dishes from local ingredients along with reasonably priced and really good wines. Seeing a lack of such restaurants in Washington DC, we decided to open Dino. Our desire is for you to enjoy our authentic foods and wines in a comfortable, casual setting.

The cooking may not all be traditional to that part of Italy, but what he seems to be doing is creating an atmosphere and style of eating that is faithful to that area.

And cucina, I think you're spot on about why more Italian restaurants don't try to stay 100% faithful to one region's cuisine -- I for one wouldn't be able to tell the difference, and there are lot more customers like me out there. I'm not proud of my ignorance, but it's factual. The education process is slow, and can't be accomplished solely bite by bite.

But: smoked Tuscan cheese? Sounds like something I need to try...

[Pontormo]

I overlooked the second of these replies for some reason.

Yes, you are right about the level of knowledge that can be expected of most diners, I agree.

Still, I wonder about the degree to which we rely on restaurants to shape that knowledge and the degree to which chefs or restauranteurs who may favor a particular region may nonetheless try to shape a menu around the more "pan-Italian" expectations of his or her potential customer.

Am I correct to assume our ignorance (positive terms: open-mindedness, spirit of adventure, inclusiveness) gives chefs certain freedoms they don't always enjoy in Italy? One eats the cooking of Emilia-Romagna in Bologna where one doesn't expect to find Venetian specialties such as pasta with squid ink sauce, or Sicilian ragu.