Ruth Tobias

Think of the latest outpost in Frank Bonanno‘s sprawling empire, located way down south at the Park Meadows Mall, as a breezier, more streamlined, family-friendlier Osteria Marco. Though smaller, the menu shares obvious elements with that of its older sibling, including an assortment of formaggio fatto in casa & imported salumi, a few salads & panini, & above all pizza, here baked in a custom-built Italian oven. But you also got your crudo & your fritto—that is, raw & fried—selections, & at a family-&-friends preview this week I started with one of each as a real-world compromise to starting with all of each (my appetite floating in a whole other dimension as it does).

We all reach a point where we’ve had our fill of a trend: beets, brussels sprouts, marrow, molten chocolate, Fernet Branca, what have you. Because it’s our job to cover trends as they develop, food writers tend to reach that point well before the average diner. Then again, we also get over being over things quicker, I think—we’re reminded that before they become trends & after they cease to be, they’re just ingredients that have their time & place.

Take raw tuna. There are only so many ways to prepare it; I’ve had them all countless times, & since I’m usually on a mission to try the new & unusual, I tend to ignore it. I’m glad that, this time, I didn’t, because the sliced ahi crudo was terrific topped with a salad of chopped romaine, basil & olives in caper vinaigrette. Simple, straightforward, refreshing. I also liked the pan-fried polenta pictured with it below, though if I ordered it again I’d mix it up bite-for-bite with some house-cured lonza or something! Because why not!

As for the pies, come on—Bonanno’s probably been making pizza in his sleep since he was 12. Of course the crust boasts great structure, with crunch & pop & give; of course the toppings are premium. The question that remains is one of personal preference, so I can’t offer much guidance except to say that the fresh, velvety ricotta—which appears on 4 of the 10 combos—is just dreamy; it certainly made for a meltingly delicate counterpoint to the mozzarella, garlic, olive oil & chili flakes also on the punchy Walter White, along with, of course, Blue Sky crystals—I mean blue-cheese crumbles! Heh.

Meanwhile, earthy accents highlighted the overall lusciousness of my companion’s wild-mushroom pizza with béchamel, robiola, & truffle oil,

but the pie I’m jonesing to try next combines fontina, ricotta & sausage with broccoli rabe & garlic butter, which sounds like just the right balance between salty juiciness & jolts of bitterness.

Finally, Osteria Marco’s butterscotch bread pudding has made the trek to Lone Tree intact; it’s a springy, peachy take on a typically heavy dessert.

In short, it’s heartening to see an independent chef bringing octopus, burrata & Aperol spritzes to the ‘burbs, damn the old “will it play in Peoria?” dilemma. Here’s betting it will, at that.

Surely it’s possible to have an ultra-fattening meal at this mod Boulder trattoria—but it isn’t easy. Having derived so much pleasure from this lunchtime tuna dish, I’ve since returned to try a number of items, & even the heaviest of them were rendered with a light touch—as is typical in cucina italiana, of course; the heaps of meat-&-cheese-smothered carbs we all grew up with in the States aren’t typically found in chef-owner Fabio Flagiello’s homeland. (Which isn’t to say they’re “inauthentic”; Italian-American food has its own history &, at its best, myriad charms. But that’s another post.)

While white flour’s a no-no on many of today’s diets, those of us whose regimen entails simply trying not to eat like a draft horse all the time are in luck: breads are baked in house (generally about 3 types on any given day), arriving warm with olive oil, balsamic vinegar & red-pepper flakes for dipping. (Also on the table is a trio of sea salts, much appreciated since traditional pane tends to be very low sodium.)

One of these loaves was supposedly flavored with rosemary, the other with black olives; damned if I could really tell whether they were, but fresh bread is fresh bread—staff of life & all.

Admittedly, anything with the word “fried” in it isn’t on anyone’s diet. But Pastavino’s fritto misto—literally “fried mixed”—of calamari, bay scallops, caperberries & a single ricotta-stuffed raviolo is unusually delicate & greaseless, paired with a bright, pure tomato sugo. So if you’re powerless to resist a little splurge, you could do much worse.

Same goes for the gnocchi alle noci e salvia—that is, with walnuts & sage, as well as brown butter, fontina sauce & a sprinkling of ground espresso beans. Though definitely one of the richest pastas on the long menu (there are 15, including 3 daily specials), it too is executed with restraint—gently coated, not drowned, in burro & formaggio. (And if you split it with a pal, as I did—what’s pictured below is a 1/2 portion—you won’t even feel guilty at all.)

Then again, you could hardly do better than with the acqua pazza (“crazy water”), an examplar of cucina povera (“poor cuisine,” ironically among the richest aspects of Italy’s culinary heritage). Pastavino’s version isn’t so impoverished, containing vino bianco as well as mineral water—but it’s highly refined, subtle, even pristine with steamed clams & chunks of sea bass, cherry tomatoes, olives (albeit black ones, not green as advertised), & chopped parsley. Gently delicious.

Ditto the tonno al pistacchio—perfectly cooked pistachio-crusted tuna atop a mixture of balsamic-marinated onions & roasted fennel, alongside a dollop of zingy salsa verde.

Streamlined elegance permeates this place—& your bones as a patron of this place.

I’ll do a full post about this stylish Italian café, run by a native of Trieste on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall, in the very near future, but I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in thinking the place underappreciated (see Douglas Brown’s recent props in the Denver Post).

This lunch entrée, simply listed as “Tonno” (tuna), was not only the best thing I ate last week but a fine choice for those still committed to world’s #1 New Year’s resolution (see other recent picks here), at least if they’re taking the low-carb approach. Twofer!

Nicely seasoned & grilled on the outside, rare yet warm on the inside, the gorgeous hunks of albacore perched atop a generous mound of spinach, asparagus, leeks & mushrooms sauteed in a tangy, garlicky lemon-caper sauce; my own resolution—to not eat everything on my plate—melted away in the face of the pure, simple pleasure.

Stay tuned for more on Pastavino’s very real appeal.

Still with me, weight watchers? Let me tell you what a pleasure it was to leave Boulder’s Arugula last night feeling chipper rather than sluggish—feeling, for once, quite unlike Louis CK (you know, “The meal is not over when I’m full! The meal is over when I hate myself.”)

For starters, I actually heeded the advice of all those experts who recommend soup for its volumizing benefits. That is, it takes up stomach space you might otherwise devote to something more fattening—assuming, of course, that it’s not cream-based or something; bisque, for one, should be off-limits, defined by The Oxford Companion to Food as “a rich soup of creamy consistency, especially of crayfish or lobster.”

Being vegan, however, this tomato-&-fennel-based number fills that bill not a whit; it’s not really a bisque at all except in the very broadest terms—i.e., it’s pureed. Sticklers for etymological accuracy may thus grumble. Calorie counters will not. Because it’s very good! Small amounts of balsamic vinegar, olive oil & grated grana padano (for the non-vegans) give it some depth, smoothing out the sprightly vegetal edges.

Arugula also deserves credit for offering half-portions of pasta. Granted, what’s pictured below are full portions, namely of hand-rolled garganelli 2 ways: with Italian sausage, goat cheese, tomatoes & caramelized onions (top) & with roasted squash, apples, fontina, honey, rosemary & more sausage (bottom). And granted, neither is diet-friendly per se. But the al dente pasta’s just lovely—perhaps tossed in the sauté pan briefly for a touch of toast—& the earthy, tangy flavors fully melded, & the range of textures such that your mouth’s interest is held bite for bite, so you can slow down & savor. And if you can do that, you might even do what I did—only eat half. (Then again, if you can do that, you might as well go with the half-order & save yourself a few clams. Hindsight!)

When I’m not in dieting mode, though, I could come back to the below dish again & again.

Last I had it, it was called squid scampi, & boy, did it pack a punch (& undoubtedly a pound)—buttery indeed, but garlicky & acid-edged too, with lots of chopped herbs. The current menu lists it as “big squid” & mentions cherry tomatoes as well. Either way, it’s a nifty twist on a classic.

By the by, if it’s your wallet that has lost weight post-holiday, chef-owner Alec Schuler cuts some weekly deals: 3-course prix fixe menus ($26) on Mondays & Wine Wednesdays, when the entire selection by the bottle is 40% off. And a smart bottle list it is: neither boringly small nor bogglingly big, adamantly narrow or indiscriminately wide, it’s focused on charming picks from some of my own favorite regional Italian producers like Paolo Bea, Foradori & Alois Lageder.

All in all, a suavely low-key, serenity-inducing performance by Arugula.

In Eater’s roundup of local writers’ top picks for 2012, I named Beatrice & Woodsley & Panzano my standbys. I’d have said the same last year & the year before that too, pretty much by definition. Granted, there are plenty of places I love equally, for all kinds of reasons. But a place becomes a standby for rather personal ones. It’s not just that everything on the menu appeals but also that you feel so good there: inspired & transported, as in the case of B&W, or utterly relaxed, as at Panzano. And whaddaya know—I’ve been to both in recent weeks, & done as right as ever by both.

If you’ve visited neither in some time, here are a few current items worth trying. At B&W, the wilted-greens cobbler with sausage & cheddar spoonbread (behind the cheese plate, below) boasts that bygone sensibility, that deeply homey savor that is chef Pete List’s hallmark, as though he’d found his recipes written in cursive in a yellowed old notebook, invoking potbellied stoves & well water. (Actually, he does do lots of research on historical American cookery, so there you go.) I once had escargots here that were way too salty, but this batch (pictured right) was spot on, bathed in butter spiked with Pernod & piquillo pepper alongside warm, soft olive bread—enough to sop up all the drippings.

The cod on the left came with bright pea brandade & smoked onions; how the delicately flaky fish stood up to both I can’t fathom, but it did. On the right, earthy, crunchy-velvety feta-&-oat croquettes made a splash amid spaghetti squash in tomato vinaigrette—much like a dish I dug recently at Euclid Hall.

As for Panzano—I usually avoid chefs’ counters, because putting my nose in their business while ignoring the business of the one that brung me strikes me as doubly awkward. But this place is an exception, because it’s too much fun to watch chef Elise Wiggins switch from English to Spanish while balletically navigating the closet-sized open kitchen with her crew.

Like everyone else, I’ve had brussels sprouts in every way, shape & form over the past few years; it seems they, of all things, have finally succeeding in nudging beets out of the top veggie spot. (What’s next? I hope it’s celery. I mean, celery’s key to mirepoix & so forth, but it rarely plays the central role its awesomeness warrants.) But here at year’s end, I’ve had 2 of the best takes on sprouts in quick succession: Ace Eat Serve’s & this one.

Both are fried, because fried! But while Ace’s skews Asian with shishito peppers, sesame seeds, & lime, Panzano’s version has an Italian agrodolce (sweet-sour) thing going on, tossed with toasted pistachios, reduced cider vinegar & rosemary salt & topped with green apple. Unexpectedly refreshing.

We also took delight in a special of baby octopus braised with tomatoes & capers over soft polenta. Set in a pool of spiced oil, this was, conversely, unexpectedly rich. Nothing wrong with that, of course, & Wiggins’ touch with every Italian starch—pasta, polenta, etc.—is so light & smooth.

That goes double for her gnocchi, which we had 2 ways that night: once made with pumpkin & served with the smoked pork chop I named one of my top 10 dishes of 2012, the other sauteed with rabbit confit, tomatoes, mushrooms, & leeks, then sprinkled with gorgonzola. Quite the cool combo, though I was so enamored with the chop I only had room for a few bites.

On that note, may 2013 be full of equally filling moments!

Everything about the Cherry Creek branch of this upmarket regional Italian franchise seems custom designed to rub me the wrong way—it just reeks of corporate blandness. But I had a little time to kill in the area recently & have to admit I was happily surprised by NoRTH’s happy hour. For the price of a bag of factory potato chips ($3), I got this heaping bowl of really beautiful zucchini chips.

Sliced razor thin, fried to a blistering golden-brown, & sprinkled with basil chiffonade, they were plenty salty & just a touch greasy (yet still recognizable as squash), super crunchy & totally downable.

There are way too many independent restaurants to support to justify returning for a full meal, but it’s nice to know if I got stuck here for some reason I wouldn’t necessarily be miserable.

Here’s what’s wrong with Frasca’s year-old, Neapolitan-style sibling: it’s in Boulder, not Napoli. That’s it & that’s pretty much all (well, I’m still not feeling the year-long trend toward drab-gray walls in restaurants either, but I seem to be alone in that).

And since there’s not much any of us can do about the fact that we exist outside of Italy, I’ve got to give boring, obvious, me-too props to the crew at Pizzeria Locale for giving it their all to transport us in spirit.

For starters, far be it from me to steer you away from the exquisite wines—both Locale’s own pizza-friendly selection & Frasca’s supplemental offerings, justly famous far-&-wide. (After a recent working lunch, I can vouch for the fact that some major players on the national sommelier circuit were all about the underappreciated Locale list.) But truth be told, I’m a sucker for the spritzes, be it the pictured late-summer version made with fresh cantaloupe juice or my recent fave (unpictured), called, IIRC, the Thistle; made with Cardamaro, it’s like a lighter, bitter-er cola.

As for antipasti: I’ve been lucky enough in this life to become jaded about insalata ai frutti di mare. From Venice & Camogli to Atrani & Palermo, I’ve had seafood salads as tear-jerkingly exquisite as arias—this one in particular—& others as shoddy as you’d expect from Olive Garden (one learns to translate congelato the hard way). Locale’s (pictured below right) is, it almost pains me to admit, every bit as good as the best I’ve ever savored in Italy, even seaside, where the calamari is so fresh & tender & buttery it melts your heart. Here, it’s not the likewise excellent, deeply flavor combination of squid, octopus, mussels, clams & shrimp that wows so much as the whole vibrant package, which also boasts crispy thin-sliced potatoes, artichoke hearts, capers & lots of lemony tang. On the left, disks of roasted pepper stuffed with excellent imported tuna pack an awesome wallop as well.

My torrid love affair with Sicilian arancini, documented here, is such that I can’t fairly comment on any stateside version. Suffice it to say these are perfectly good.

Keeping in mind, then, that intensely personal history tends to color all my Italian-food experiences forevermore—that, in short, my standards are extremely high, perhaps even unfairly high—you can rest assured that I believe in Locale, above all where it matters most: in its approach to pizza.

I understand it’s had its share of complaints about the fact that the pies arrive uncut. Folks, Locale is, as we’ve noted, a Neapolitan-style pizzeria, & in Napoli (& Perugia & Lucca & anywhere else I’ve ever had pizza in Italy), this is the way pizza is served. If you can’t deal, then by all means skip it in favor of a good old corner parlor slinging head-sized slices you can fold & cram down your craw in seconds flat. (I don’t say that critically; I may be an Italophile, but I’m Kansas-born & Oklahoma-bred, hence fond of shoveling as well as nibbling.) But if you’re on the fence, look at it this way: the knife-&-fork ritual forces you to slow down a little, enjoy the company you’re keeping, maybe even recognize the sensation of fullness before it’s too late.

Anyway, I like just fine the slightly spicy Bianca with buffalo mozz & pecorino, lardon-cut sausage, rapini & garlic—

but I adore the Mais with corn, prosciutto cotto & crème fraîche (+ more buffalo mozz). It’s not often one can call a pizza delicate or subtle; this baby is.

In case you were wondering, corn is not an uncommon pizza topping in Italy, though it is, in my experience, typically combined with chunks of oil-packed tuna over red sauce, senza formaggio (mixing seafood & cheese is verboten there, though that’s one of the few rules of Italian cuisine I’m all for breaking. Come on, shrimp & feta?)

Budino, meanwhile, doesn’t require any life experience to appreciate. It’s butterscotch pudding. Done.

Okay, I had it 2 weeks ago, but I can’t get it out of my head. While doing an interview with the local chefly treasure that is Brian Laird—the longtime head toque at Barolo Grill, now kicking it at Sketch—he served me up a bowl of these tiny, veal-stuffed Piedmontese-style ravioli in sage brown butter. Far too often brown butter is allowed to run rampant over the main ingredient, & sage can be overpowering too—but not so here, where they simply highlighted the beautifully textured pasta.  This was, in 2 words, effortlessly perfetto.

Like Interstate Kitchen & Bar, Crimson Canary sports a retro, specifically mid-century, theme; unlike its sibling, said theme is urban rather than rural—CC’s doing the kind of blood-&-marinara-splattered, East Coast–mafioso song & dance that I got my fill of back in Boston’s most blatant tourist traps. So I’m happy to report that at least they don’t overdo it (unless you happen to be sitting in a booth beneath an unadvisedly grisly crime-scene snapshot); on the contrary, the vibe is quite twinkly & mellow. That’s especially true of the kitchen & bar menus, which borrow from Italian-Americana all of the commendable elements, none of the schlock. In fact, I think the food’s better than that at Interstate, perfectly likeable as the latter is.

Take this savvy twist on panzanella (but don’t call it that; when I asked about it by the Italian name, I was told, “I don’t think we have that.” My dining companion & dear friend Beth—whose photos these are, & who’s documenting her tenacious ride on the rollercoaster of life here at 12 Cities 1 Year—heard a few such hiccups from the bar staff; they’re an amiable bunch, but need a bit more training with respect to Italian food in general and their own menu in particular).

In my time I’ve had versions of the Tuscan bread salad that were so precious as to be unrecognizable as well as some that confused “peasant-style” with “cheap-ass.” Ultimately, the real deal comes down to good-quality bread that’s somewhere between the day-old & the crouton stages, plus careful dressing (traditionally local olive oil & red-wine vinegar). This one succeeds on both counts, & it replaces with equal consideration the standard parmesan & marinated tomatoes, peppers & red onions with gorgonzola, gently pickled onions, sliced pear & mixed greens. Though not cornbread, the cubes have an almost cornbready heft; dig.

And damn these smoked mushroom–ricotta ravioli were good.

Truth is I rarely order pasta in American restaurants anymore. Of the 100,000 options out there, 99,900 of them are a waste of your daily-allotted carbohydrates. But that remaining 100? Bacio, bacio. Any number of Italian restaurants in this town could take a page from Crimson Canary in its handling of pasta dough (never mind its presentation—the above’s gorgeous, right?): this was just silken & tender enough, with that telltale al dente resilience & flavor of its own; the mushrooms, meanwhile, were its firm, meaty equal, as the fresh cheese & herbs provided deceptively delicate balance.

Even better, however, was the fettuccine accompanying the terrific veal scaloppini.

When I ordered the dish a couple of weeks ago, it didn’t get so much as a name-check in the menu description, though I see that’s now changed, justifiably—it’s glossy, snappy, textured with a dusting of herbs & cheese, & the perfect contrast to the meat, which is really just expertly handled: the plump cutlet beautifully browned, adding crunch to its velvet, the mushroom sauce with Marsala & cream the exact opposite of the glop so common at the joints CC’s supposedly emulating. Ditto the throwback but not throwaway cocktails & a wine list that pays homage to emerging regions like Alto Adige & Calabria.

So, yeah, nuova cosa nostra in the Baker District.

Okay, Panzano chef Elise Wiggins isn’t Colorado-born, but she’s a local girl through & through now. I love that laid-back yet saucy gal—& as for her cooking, she’s easily my pick for Denver’s most underappreciated talent (see here, here).

From July 25 through 31, in conjunction with Kimpton Hotels’ Summer Like a Local campaign, she’ll be preparing a prix-fixe 4-course tasting composed entirely of Colorado-grown & -raised ingredients & optionally paired with all-local pours ($25/$39 at lunch; $38/$52 at dinner); 5 percent of all proceeds will go to the Denver chapter of Dress for Success. Did I mention she’ll be roasting the Triple M Bar Ranch lamb right on the Panzano patio? Yes I just did!

1st Course
Pan-seared scallop with grilled local corn, prosciutto & basil
Infinite Monkey Theorem Semillon

2nd Course
Grilled Caesar salad
Avery White Rascal

3rd Course
Whole-roasted rosemary Colorado lamb with gnocchi, walnuts, mint pesto, dried pomegranate & goat cheese
Guy Drew Syrah

4th Course
Rocky Ford Melon Sorbetto
Infinite Monkey Theorem Black Muscat