L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2017 www.italoamericano.org 6 Italian actor, hence the choice". Here, in this corner of the city, took place an authentic revolu- tion in Italian dining and wine in Los Angeles. In the '70s, restaurants that served Italian food would present clams oreganato, lobster fradi- avolo, and typical Italian prod- ucts were the huge mozzarella cubes, not even close to moz- zarella as we can find today even in regular supermarkets like Vons, Berio or Sasso olive oil that had nothing to do with cold pressed, extra virgin olive oils now available, not to mention a much smaller selection of wines. From Italian restaurants, cus- tomers expected checkered tablecloths, grated parmesan cheese from a box, and"lotsa garlic" accompanied by lambrus- co or barolo wine from Northern Italy. Then came Piero Selvaggio, a young Sicilian who had arrived in New York as a teenager with his parents in the '60s and who knew only his mom's cuisine and that of the catholic boarding school he attended as a child. But he was a player, he knew how to greet his customers, how to be gallant with women, how to bow and kiss their hands when they entered the restaurant, he had that savoir faire that guaranteed a full house every night at the restaurant he opened with his then partner Gianni Paoletti. "Gianni had worked as a chef in London, says Piero, so he contin- ued to cook, while I was the maitre d. Our cuisine was terri- ble, really terrible if I think about it now. We served manicotti, tortellini, cannoli, everybody was happy and we were making money. Until one night, one cus- tomer, Sid Greenberg, called me and said: you are great with peo- ple but your food is terrible. You better wake up or soon your restaurant will be empty". "It w as tough", continues Piero, "but I decided to do some- thing. So I left for Italy with the goal of learning. Once I arrived in Milan I asked Pino Khail, a journalist expert in wines, for help. He took me to Giannino Restaurant and I was intimidated because I realized I knew noth- ing of authentic Italian cuisine. There, for the first time, I tasted truffles, porcini mushrooms and carpaccio which left me and my tasting buds in awe and I went in a total emotional crisis". P iero found hims elf at a crossroad: keep on walking on the path of the safe "lotsa garlic- lotsa cheesy blob" or get out of mom's kitchen and learn what chefs were cooking in Italy. He was brave and chose the second, adventurous, rewarding path. So his culinary Italian pilgrimage continued and Piero went to pay a visit to Nino Bergese, favorite chef of aristocrats and author of "Eat like a king", who at the time was working at San Domenico Restaurant in Imola. There another world opened up when he tasted the "Bergese Raviolo", a recipe where a ravio- lo is filled with egg, truffles, ricotta and parmesan cheese. "The main characteris tic of Italian cuisine, says Piero, is that it is made with few ingredients and you can appreciate all the flavors that are never homoge- nized by butter or cream. This is the difference between Italian and French cuisine, for example, and this is the reason why today French cuisine is no longer on the scene and Italian cuisine, like it happened at the time of the Roman empire, has ended up by dominating the scene". "In the 70s, however, also in Italy, the restaurant scene was not a professional scene and chefs used to come mostly from Swiss or German schools, con- tinues Piero. Wines too were not as they are today and, for exam- ple, Sicilian wines were used only to add color and alcohol to other wines produced in northern regions of Italy and F rance which, given the lower tempera- tures, had lower concentration of sugar". He gets up from the bar we are sitting at and leads us to his treasure room, his over-100,000- bottle cellar. It is a space which is not underground but upstairs and includes a huge dinner table dedicated to high level wine tast- ing and pairing experiences. Around the room, the wall is a continuous wine case and one jus t needs to focus on s ome labels to realize this is the heav- en of wine connoisseurs: the Sauternes du Chateau d'Yquem, Conterno Barolo 1941 bottles, Sassicaia, Pio Cesare Barolo with bottles of 1964, Chateau Latour, Chateau La M is s ion Haut Brion with a 1955 bottle, and th e lis t could go on for pages . S ince 1981, P iero S elvaggio's cellar has been aw arded prizes and Wine Spectator has honored it as one of the ten best wine lists in the world. In his cellar he has many Sicilian wines, Sicily being his mother-land: "Mount Etna's rich and pristine volcanic soil allows for spectacular wines and in recent years Sicily has awaken to serious wine production. I love the Francesca Planeta wines, Regaleali, the Cos V ittoria Cerasuolo, Corvo Duca Enrico, Geraci's Faro Palari, Antonio Melia's Ceuso, just to name a few, says Piero. Uncorking a bottle is magic and I love to be able to offer perfect pairings and that is why I don't appreciate the custom of customers bringing their own wine. Sometimes they even arrive with a suitcase full of wines, even before they know what they will order. Sad, very sad, but we respect society's evolution. Unfortunately many of these evolutions are taking the magic away from a restaurant experience, they take away the wow-factor. Today, you go on Instagram and can find the pho- tos of all dishes, on internet we have to list the menu, how can I surprise the customer?" He brings to mind the idea of dinner and wines in total dark- ness for an incredible sensory experience. "Millennials are more into atmosphere than food, even though there is a better know ledge of food in general. They want to experi- ence more than taste, and after the 2008 crisis there is more attention being paid to prices. I think Italian cuisine can be great and chefs will just have to rein- vent what are customarily known as "poor dishes", with no meat and ingredients like pasta, veg- etables and rice". "What do you think is the key of Italian cuisine success?". "I think it is not only the best comfort food but also a cuisine that is susceptible to cus- tom creation. Our customers know they can add and remove ingredients at their own will to adapt recipes to their very per- sonal taste". This brings us to the other important revolution by Piero, who brought to the US products like truffles, burrata, capers, bot- targa, prosciutto, Pachino cherry tomatoes, and Modica chocolate which had never been heard of before. This ability to reinvent Italian cuisine and offer new fla- vors and wine labels is probably the reason why Valentino is still on the scene at the same address after 45 years w hile famous Italian restaurants like Perino's, V illa Capri, M atteo's and Chianti no longer exist. One could safely say there is a before and after Piero Selvaggio, in Italian restaurants and wines in Los Angeles. One can easily grasp this evo- lution by looking at P iero's handwritten menu from the early days of Valentino, exhibited at the Italian American Museum in Los Angeles, with mozzarella in carrozza at $2.50, spaghetti alla carbonara at $4.65, veal piccata w ith eggplant at $6.50 and mama's cannoli at $1.50. Today, Valentino dinner menu displays Tuna tartare and burrata at $20, prosciutto stuffed ravioli with cantaloupe melon cream sauce for $30, bone marrow stuffed veal shank, slowly braised with vin santo and served with soft polenta for $46: prices are still similar (consider median house- hold income has gone from $8,000 in 1972 to $56,500 in 2015) but the offer is totally dif- ferent. While we are still talking about wines and cheeses, a plate with cannoli and pistachio ice cream is brought to us and they taste just like they do in Sicily. While we enjoy the desserts, Piero shows us photos from his past: with the Pinchiorri family of famous Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence and Francesca Planeta, to end with long time friend Wolfgang Puck who christened Piero's child. What's in store for the future? "My three older chil- dren, says Piero, are not in the restaurant business, the young ones are too young, 2 and 8 years old. For a while I thought of sell- ing Valentino, but this is part of me, there is still so much to be said and given to customers. A dining multi sensory experience is maybe what can for a moment have the new generations put down their cell phone and con- centrate on experiencing the food instead of photographing it for an immediate posting". The dining table is the origi- nal social network, where we can remember our names and share the mos t memorable dining experience while forgetting our smartphones. Piero Selvaggio's bottle cellar is the heaven of wine connoisseurs Piero Selvaggio: The evolution of Italian dining in LA NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued from page 1

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