Italian restaurants, which I consider too often…. Though Italian restaurants, or a fair number, generally became more truly Italian over the years, several widespread aspects of the Italian restaurants in America were not found in Italy. These included a small bowl or cruet of olive oil set on the table along with a basket of bread for dipping into the oil. This seems to have begun in the 1980s. It might have been one of the innovations of ground-breaking New York restaurateur Pino Luongo, whose Tuscan-inspired restaurants included Coco Pazzo that once had a location in Houston. Though the concept of dipping raw vegetables into oil, pinzimonio, is found in parts of Italy, the similar use of bread is not, at least the way it is done in this country. Olive oil for the bread on the table was a crowd-pleaser and quickly spread, becoming expected by most diners, even if it was an additional freebie for the owner and a way for customers to waste a lot of decent olive oil. It became emblematic of Italian restaurants here – as much as soft, overcooked pasta served with a lot of sauce – and was resisted only by those able to adhere more closely to the Italian model.
 
If presented in a bowl or plate, the olive oil was often studded with herbs, garlic and sometimes industrial balsamic vinegar. The use of the sweet vinegar became another hallmark of American Italian dining. Balsamic vinegar in its truest, most artisanal form, was nearly unknown outside of its home in and around the north-central city of Modena in Emilia-Romagna until it began to be imported into the U.S. by Williams Sonoma in the late 1970s and then used at the most discerning restaurants a few years later. As it took years to make small amounts, it was expensive, but its concentrated flavor went a long way as a condiment. As the original aged versions gained traction with Americans and the American press, commercial vinegars bearing the name “balsamic vinegar,” tasting vaguely similar and far less pricey, began to be produced. It was with these that most American diners grew to enjoy, both with bread and more so mixed with salads.
 
Predating both the table presentation of olive oil and the familiarity with this uniquely Italian-esque vinegar was the Italian steakhouse, at least in America. There are no steakhouses in Italy. Outside of the Florentines and later other Tuscans, there has been no steak tradition in Italy. In fact, the bistecca in the famous bistecca alla fiorentina comes from the English “beefsteak” because there was no suitable Italian name for the dish. “Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak,” as Kurt Vonnegut rightly observed, and Italian-Americans found it both profitable and enjoyable to serve steak. The first might have been The Palm in Manhattan that opened in the 1920s – very unfortunately, subsequently Landry-ized in recent years – even if it did not consciously start out as primarily a steakhouse. It was later joined, especially after 1990, by numerous others primarily in the northeast and Midwest. These served similar preparations and steaks as the typical grand American steakhouses. What made them “Italian” was that the menu was filled out with a number of rote Italian-American dishes, and usually the restaurant’s full name included the phrase, “Italian Steakhouse.” They could sell to customers wanting two different popular cuisines.

Frank Sinatra was a reportedly a big fan of one of the longtime Italian steakhouses, Gene & Georgetti’s in Chicago, which is still around and quite adept, with old school charm and a hearty menu updated with the times. Sinatra was reportedly a big fan of countless Italian-themed eateries. In fact, “Frank Sinatra ate here” might only be rivaled by “George Washington slept here” in the northeast. According to the dedicated road food warriors, Jane and Michael Stern, who would know better than anyone, “there are countless places between Philly and Boston (not to mention some in Vegas and Palm Springs) where, if you judged by the pictures on the wall, you'd have to say that Frank was the management's best friend.”   A tree of decades-old Italian-American eateries in the Los Angeles area can trace their heritage back to Sinatra beginning with Hollywood’s Villa Capri. Though Sinatra was, by all regards, a terrific customer known for his extremely generous tipping, he also brought a tremendous amount of star power and glamour. He was, after all, one of the most famous Americans since the time he burst on the scene in the early 1940s until his death in the late 1990s. The advertisement of a restaurant’s connection to Sinatra was and continues to be a recognizable feature of the Italian restaurant here, just as it once was with previous Italian-American heroes, Joe DiMaggio and Enrico Caruso.
 
Sinatra’s fixture is more permanent, because Sinatra’s music – and in some sense his persona – has become intertwined with Italian-American food and joyous carousing. Sinatra might be as much a part of the American Italian restaurant as red sauce. His songs and those of the other popular Italian-American singers interpreting the Great American Songbook after the Second World War have become a requisite part of the soundtrack of Italian-themed restaurants. Sinatra was just the best and has been the most played, but he is often joined by Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Louis Prima, Bobby Darin, Jerry Vale, Jimmy Rosselli, Mario Lanza, Perry Como, Frankie Laine, and Vic Damone as part of the ambiance when out at an Italian restaurant.
 
Though American-bred singers seemed natural complements to the restaurants serving the food, what might be surprising is the disdain that the vast majority of Italians have to Italian food with any American concessions. Most Italians absolutely cannot stand Italian-American food, or at least they say so. This seems to stem largely from the fact that Italians have possibly the narrowest palates in the world, or at least they did in decades past. That and their intense local pride fostered by history and geography. They might complain bitterly about the preparations of dish a town over in Italy if it is slightly different than their own. Of course, they are typically quick to criticize restaurants here.
 
No matter. Italian restaurants in America need to be in business not necessarily to be that Italian.  

From an Italian steakhouse chain in the Midwest; a steak with some seemingly Italian-American touches

As there are so many delicious foods to be found in hopelessly unattractive strip centers throughout the Houston area, it should be no surprise that excellent sandwiches can be had at one in a small place that opened this summer in Spring Branch, on Campbell just north of I-10. The surprise is that sandwiches are somewhat of an afterthought there. Primarily a fresh pasta shop also selling accompanying sauces, Casetta Cucina, has just three sandwiches. These are rather unique, Italian sandwiches made with the unusual Tuscan schiacciata bread, a fairly dense focaccia-like bread made in-house that gives the assemblages a sturdy, delicious base. The unusual name with its assault of consonants might give pause when customers go into the shop for pasta and see the little placard on the counter for sandwiches bearing this name. It is pronounced skiah-CHA-tah. Not too hard.
 
If you enjoy the sandwiches in Italy, from the Autogrill or lesser autostrade stops or in cafés there in the afternoon, or just enjoy Italianate versions anywhere, you'll really like the ones here featuring top-notch ingredients used intelligently and judiciously. I’ve liked them even more than the ones I’ve had over the years in Italy. And these are very similar, if just a little different because of the bread. There is the Caprese with rich buffalo milk mozzarella and tomato slices bolstered with a little bit of pesto, another featuring prosciutto, with the mozzarella and bitter arugula, and the third with pistachio-studded mortadella, arugula and for an additional couple of dollars, melted creamy, buttery robiola from the Italian cheesemakers at Lira Rossa a couple of hours west of Houston. Along with noticeable olive oil, each is topped large grains of sea salt that add a very welcome flavor to the mix. Each of the three is very good, though the mortadella one has been my favorite. Just those three now, I’ve been told a Sicilian hamburger is on the way. Whatever that might be, I’m sure it will be worth a try, at the very least.
 
Casetta Cucina is mostly a spot to pick up pasta fresca, pasta made by hand. The pasta-making station greets you as you enter, situated prominently behind the counter separated by glass with either owner, Francesco Casetta, or another worker plying away, with stacked, big bags of Caputo flour from Italy visible on the floor. You might have seen Casetta at one of the weekend farmers markets selling pasta. Once the executive chef at Tony's, he certainly has the skills to craft a quality sandwich. More so, since he making the bread.

There is not much to the place in terms of dining in, just a couple small tables or so out front and another in hallway, but the sandwiches travel very well back to the office or home.

Casetta Cucina
1024 Campbell Road (just north of I-10), 77055, (346) 546-8438
casettacucina.com
Monday-Friday, 9AM to 6PM

Along with empty Chianti fiaschi covered in wax from candles, red-and-white-checkered gingham tablecloths might quickly come to mind for many, maybe those a little older, when thinking of Italian restaurants. There was a strong association between the two for years in this country given the sheer number of Italian restaurants employing them. New York restaurateur Pino Luongo wrote “in 1983, there were only two types of Italian restaurants here. There were the places with the red-checkered tablecloths that served spaghetti and meatballs and veal piccata” and a far smaller number of fancy spots. Even today, it’s easy to find red and white coverings for sale with names like “Italian Restaurant Checkered Tablecloth,” “Italian Styled Red and White Checkered Print Tablecloth,” “Italian Checked Tablecloth” and “Checkered tablecloths – Not just for Italian restaurants.” The use of these types of tablecloths was not limited to Italian restaurants, and were also once very popular with a wide range of restaurants, especially in the nation’s biggest city. Joe Allen’s Paris restaurant that drew a lot of ink was described after opening in 1972 as having an ambiance that “is still definitely New York” prominently with “red‐checked tablecloths,” and even the landmark “21” restaurant famously had those in its bar area for decades until shuttered by the pandemic.
 
That Italian restaurants became linked to those tablecloths might have began in New York before Prohibition, where there were many more Italian restaurants than elsewhere. The Italian restaurateurs could have looked to the city’s popular, casual French bistros, or German, or affordable restaurants of any or nearly every stripe – except for Chinese, it seems – in the city for an example to borrow to suitably cover their tables. The starched white tablecloths at the nicer establishments signified something classier and more expensive. And cleaning and ironing those white tablecloths were more expensive, too. The affordability of these red-and-white-checkered options were certainly a significant factor, too. And, conveniently and maybe importantly, that busy red-and-white pattern help obscure stains from red sauce and red wine, which were brought to about every table.
 
As Italian-themed restaurants became more ambitious and pricier, and maybe more Italian, these lost the red-checkered patterns. These were seen by many diners as old fashioned. And that is reason is why you will still see them at some intentionally homier Italian-American places. Italian-American not Italian.

Watching from a café, aperitivo at hand, across a small street from the popular trattoria Scannabue, we saw other tourists gathering at its entrance for the chance of a table that evening, seemingly all without luck. This helped reinforce the thought that this was a good choice for the first meal during my first visit to the charming city of Turin. But I was already feeling fairly confident as this restaurant in the bohemian- and immigrant-accented San Salvario neighborhood near the grand central train station was recommended in the Michelin guide – my go-to for dining in Europe – and had a Bib Gourmand designation to boot, had been cited in a recent New York Times travel piece, “36 Hours in Turin,” and even had a positive blurb from England’s top wine publication, Decanter.
 
Part of the initial seating, we were among the first to arrive in a low-ceiling setting that was homey, comfortable, but quickly filled with the liveliness of a popular, buzzy restaurant. The few diners there at the start, were, like us, seemingly eagerly looking toward the meal and enjoying the evening. Those expectations were to be met, exceeded even. The dinner, with bread, quickly brought to the table, including grissini, of course, then the dishes, was excellent and service was attentive, friendly, and nicely mostly in English. We went with the five-course traditional menu for a comparative song at just 35 euros, for a sample some of the highlights of the rich, often meaty and widely appealing cuisine of this land-locked region. That was, in succession: veal tonnato, playfully topped with a big caperberry; tender agnolotti del plin filled with three roasted ground meats; braised beef in red wine, this with veal cheek and mashed potatoes; whipped baccalà in more mashed potatoes; and bonet, a chocolate panna cotta, of sorts.
 
These were each updated versions of classic local and regional dishes, dishes I’d had in previous trips. These were just done better: more flavorful, richer, featuring evidently high quality ingredients, with considerable experience and skill in the kitchen, and generally presented more attractively. The veal tonnato featured very soft slices of roast veal, nicely tart, as good as any very I remembered having in the area. The pasta pockets that were the egg yolk-heavy agnolotti were tender and the meats, rustic-tasting, savory and hearty. The braise was unctuous, delicious. Even the baccalà, far from a typical order for me, was enjoyable. And bonet, was terrific, even after seemingly more than enough calories by that stage. The portions were hearty, as in a generous village trattoria, but the execution more refined, befitting a what is a top restaurant city like Turin.
 
Scannabue is a trattoria with evident surety in its cooking and also with a sense of more contemporary ideas. We saw the playful and acclaimed vasocottura, rabbit cooked in a jar with a tuna sauce, carried to a few tables. I look forward to a future return for something new, or maybe just what I had. It was that good.
 
As you might expect given its proximity to the famed wine regions nearby, the vinous offerings are numerous and well-chosen, even more so than most local trattorias. I had my eyes on an eminently food-friendly Barbera from nearby that I might not find at home, but the waitress directed us to a Barbera d’Asti from Sette that proved too thin and troppo naturale for my tastes. She was certainly very knowledgeable, but like many younger sommeliers, but had more a penchant for the new, less tried and funky than I do. The list, about 800 labels, was fun to peruse with a number of neat things from more than nearby: Emidio Pepe for just 65 euros and a couple bottlings of the other cult Montepulciano d’Abruzzo producer, Valentini. And couple from Cantina Giardino, a natural wine producer in Campania that actually knows its craft, that I have quite liked in the past.
 
This is a restaurant to visit when visiting Turin, wine lover or not. It’s some more fun if you are though.
 
Scannabue
Largo Saluzzo, 25/h, 10125
Turin, Italy
scannabue.it

The Guancia Brasata al Barbera su Purea di Patate at Scannabue

When discussing heading to the Green Mill in Chicago to hear live music and maybe a few drinks in the late 1980s, my friends were quick to point out that it had been owned by Machine Gun McGurn, a legendary and legendary cruel mobster, several decades earlier. That reputation hung over place, part of its brand, and part of the draw. The mob connection has been an enticement for decades for customers, or a segment of customers, possibly lured by a sense of perceived danger, however small, the notoriety, the assumed raffishness of the spot, or even the attraction to the power of organized crime figures.
 
In an article in the Washington Post with the cheeky title, “A Real Shot in the Arm for N.Y. Eateries” in 1989 quotes a regular patron to The Bankers and Brokers Ristorante not far from his work: “The fact there's a mob shooting connected with the place does sort of add excitement…You feel like you're in the middle of it all,” referring to an organized crime shooting stemming from an incident at the restaurant, which was allegedly connected to a member of the Gambino family. That appeal was widespread and the benefit for the business was noted by Tim Zagat, “It's sad but true that shootings are good for the restaurant business….It's more publicity than a restaurant would ever get through reviews; it's worth millions.” There can be a practical side for this, as restaurants have provided more convenient settings for shootings, as it might the only public spots to find these often reclusive and armed targets. Even these Italian-Americans have had a penchant for Italian-American fare, so the place with the attendant publicity is usually Italian-themed, one of the hazards of doing business for some.
 
The best mob association for an establishment might be to have hosted a sensational murder or publicized shooting, but the appeal is also for those reputed to be mob hangouts or owned by a mobster, even once owned. There’s been quite a few of these mob-connected spots over the years, mostly in New York, where there’s been much more Italian organized crime but also Chicago and Philadelphia, and elsewhere. There is, or was, even another aspect to the appeal of mobsters at restaurants. Star critic Gael Greene, in the early years of her restaurant review column in New York magazine, wanted to check out in 1969 the thought in New York that the “Mafia is widely advanced as ‘the Michelin Guide for Italian restaurants.” Aided in her quest by a “gourmet crew of Mafia Boswells and plumpish law enforcement officers” who had “shared their personal dining guides to Mafia-starred restaurants,” she visited eight restaurants, four of which were in Little Italy, and another just blocks away, each serving familiar local takes on Southern Italian-American fare. Greene was not too impressed with these. That did not have to diminish the draw, though.

Below are a dozen of the most infamous over the years, one with a very memorable name even hosted a couple different murders decades apart.

Photo: Umberto's Clam House - Jerry Mosey/AP/Shutterstock

Wine comes to mind when dining at Italian, and French, restaurants, more so than with other cuisines. With the exception of some inexpensive sandwich and by-the-slice pizza joints, wine is, and has always been, an important part at Italian restaurants in this country – with the possible exception of the dark days of Prohibition, though even then at many, or most. This is because wine was a fundamental, and often needed component, of the daily table of the Italians who emigrated. Wine has been drunk throughout the Italian peninsula, and almost wherever grapevines grew in Europe, for well over a couple of thousand years as an activity of daily life. Largely because the “consumption of wine in the main European winemaking countries was part of the everyday diet largely because it was an important part of the caloric intake necessary to perform work activities,” noted an academic survey, A History of Wine in Europe, 19th to 20th Centuries.
 
That expectation for wine extended to life in America for those coming from Italy, even the calories provided by it was no longer as needed. Viewed almost as a liquid dish, wine had always been served at meals in Italy and continued in the new country. “Wine is food as well as drink to the Italian people,” as a piece in the New York Daily Tribune observed in 1904. It was on the table in Italy and was always found at Italian restaurants in the new country, even if the wine might not have been made nearby as in the home country. That wine served in American restaurants might have been imported from Italy or, more so, shipped from California, which was cheaper.
 
Though wine was expected by the Italians arriving on the shores, the eventual home-grown customers were less versed in the fruits of the vine. Wine was not part of the culture of the United States as it was in the wine-producing countries of Europe. In the U.S., for most of its history until recent decades, wine was the province of the more well-to-do and more sophisticated, as wine was not a widespread agriculture product and not nearly as ubiquitous. Wine was a staple for Italians, somewhat of a luxury for Americans.
 
Before Prohibition…
 
The wine offerings at Italian restaurants were rather limited compared to today in the years leading up to Prohibition, and well afterwards, for that matter. Most were humble table d’hôte establishments with a significant portion of the clientele the recent arrivals from Italy, until recently, peasants or laborers for whom wine was not much more than a requisite part of the meal. These customers were certainly not that fussy about the wine, as long as it was mostly palatable. Wine was almost necessarily included in the price at Italian table d’hôte restaurants, and all Italian restaurants then had a table d’hôte option. Though these have long gone out of fashion in favor of the a la carte menus, table d’hôte was a common type of restaurant and option before the Second World War where a multi-course meal, with no or a very limited of choices, was served at a fixed price.

A New York paper reporting about Italian restaurants in 1905 wrote that the wine “is mainly from California” and “often served with seltzer.” About a decade later, at the popular Buon Gusto in San Francisco, a customer was “served a pint of good table wine” as part of a six-course dinner for fifty cents – a feast for all of $16 in 2024 currency – and this was typical throughout San Francisco, New York and elsewhere.
 
As the grape varieties in the eastern part of country would not yield an acceptable product, that table d’hôte wine and all the most inexpensive wines came from California, sometimes shipped in bulk and bottled at the restaurant. Those might be around 40 cents, less than $10 in 2024, if purchased by the bottle or quart. The nicest domestic bottlings like Tipo, from Italian Swiss Colony in Asti, California, were a $1 a bottle at restaurants, around $30 today.
 
The wines that were imported from Europe were a little sturdier than the young wines that most of the immigrants had consumed at home. These had to last the trip and some additional lag before consumption, and more was to be made from exporting the better wines. These were from the more well-established wineries and regions: Asti Spumante, Barolo and an earlier spelling of Nebbiolo, Nebiolo, which was sometimes spumante, from Piedmont; Chianti in a couple hues from Tuscany; and the once-famous Lacrima Christi from the slopes of Mount Vesuvius – that in red, white, and sparkling in both red and white. The better Italian restaurants also served a fair number of wines from France, Germany and sometimes Spain. These imported wines were usually identified by the negociant rather than the producer, unlike today. Renganeschi in Manhattan had about forty wines on its list in 1916, the noted Guffanti’s, about seventy, each ranging from about nine or ten dollars to $130 in 2024 dollars, the most expensive being from Champagne, labels that are still popular today, Veuve Clicquot, Charles Heidsieck, Pommery. The Champagne region has always found a home at the nicest Italian restaurants, as in the nicest restaurants almost anywhere.
 
During Prohibition…
 
Though Italian restaurateurs thought Prohibition ridiculous and a serious threat to business, nearly all carried on, the popular Gonfarone in lower Manhattan being an exception, shuttering at its onset with the inability to serve wine legally. Wine was still served in most, though, if not so legally. Wine continued to be made, largely by non-professionals, with grapes being shipped from California to points east for manufacture. This home winemaking was not actually lawful; it’s illegality was just not enforced, and local municipalities sometimes even issued permits for it. The demand for grapes, especially from Italians, for this created a boom in grape growing causing an increase in acreage devoted to it by over 23,000 acres in California from the advent of Prohibition through 1924 and peaking in 1926. By mid-decade, the country was consuming about 150 millions gallons of the amateurs’ output. That often ended up in the dining rooms of Italian restaurants; likely not having to travel very far. The most popular grape traveling to the eastern cities was the thick-skinned, attractive and dark-juiced Alicante Bouschet, that made a mediocre wine, at its best, usually worse, as wines were also made after the initial press. But it was wine.
 
And the wine was available. A news service sketch of lower Manhattan in 1929, nearly a decade with Prohibition, describes the area around Eighth and Fourth streets with “Italian restaurants where the wine, if young, is still wine.” Around that time in Chicago, a guidebook describes that the “obscure little restaurants and other similar places all over town, and some not so obscure, that have about as much respect for the Eighteenth Amendment as the eminent Mr. Capone has,” so that “you ought at least to find Dago Red. In case you're more fortunate, however, and come upon a wide assortment of table wines.” Joe Marchetti of the Como Inn, also in the Windy City, recalled years later: ”We had a lot of great years during Prohibition. You could get a glass of wine if you had to have one. What`s an Italian meal without wine?”
 
There was some risk in this, but the rewards seemed to outweigh these by a ways. At least two of the most well-known and highly regarded Italian restaurants in Manhattan were successfully raided by Prohibition agents to some notoriety. Guffanti’s, the first time in early 1922 when agents were able to purchase a quart of wine for a very steep $5. A certainly better bottle of Tipo red was $1 before the Volstead Act. A couple of years later, agents found alcohol there valued at an estimated $100,000 – that’s $1.6 million in 2024. In 1930, a squad of Prohibition agents, search warrant in hand, descended on Leone's – eventually known as Mamma Leone’s – “during the peak of the dinner rush-hour…seized $5,000 worth of wines, whiskies and liqueurs, and arrested Joseph Leone and his brother Celestine, two of the three proprietors, and three waiters,” and startling customers, “many to hurry away, some leaving their dinners untouched.” That wine and other intoxicants were served was widely known and somewhat protected as “admission to the restaurant is by card only” and it was recognized that Leone’s “numbers among its patrons some of the best known professional people in the country.” The raid on Leone’s was caused by a complaint by its neighbor, a Methodist church. Leone’s later purchased the church’s property, demolishing it for expansion in the 1940s. As for Guffanti’s proprietor, Joseph Guffanti, he died in 1929 with an estate valued at a million dollars, not all it from the proceeds of the restaurant.
 
A great many throughout the country still felt the need for some alcohol when out for an evening meal during the 1920s and into the 1930s. “Prohibition, with its lackluster speakeasy cuisine, had led many diners to investigate small foreign restaurants,” according to Michael and Ariane Batterberry in On the Town in New York, their historical survey of dining there. And those foreign restaurants were largely Italian, both in New York and elsewhere. Somewhat ironically, for such a wine-inducive cuisine during Prohibition, “as their prices remained within reason, the popularity of these little restaurants was cemented permanently by the Depression,” that carried on after drinking became legal again.

After Prohibition for many years…
 
The misguided experiment that was Prohibition help to destroy the domestic wine industry and also help to alter, ruin, American palates about wine. The wines made during those years were with far less skill than before and later, largely in basements and warehouses, not in wineries. It was also nearly entirely red. Vineyards in California were devoted to lesser grapes like the Alicante Bouschet – there was not much Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Chardonnay planted, with only 7,000 acres of white in the state by the early 1930s – and the taste of wine consumers was toward the inexpensive fortified wines, the poor person’s spirits. These were sold at a ratio of five to one when alcoholic beverages became legal again. Most of those with more disposable income drank mostly cocktails. Just after Prohibition, Americans consumed just over a quart of wine per person. In Italy, 24 gallons were consumed per person – that’s over 90 times more than Americans drank on average. Then the French, who were at their thirstiest at almost 40 gallons and continuing a spree that seemed to begin with the Armistice. It was not until 1967 did the per capita wine consumption in the U.S. hit one gallon. After repeal, three-quarters of the wine was sold in just five states: California, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, and Michigan, all with large Catholic populations. And American’s were consuming wines that still largely sweeter at that point, not the best accompaniments to the dinner.
 
Italian restaurants began to stock wines again legally in the 1930s, sometimes including those sugary- and different-tasting wines likes Virginia Dare. The lists resumed similar outlines to that before 1920, with better lists in New York and San Francisco, as before, but generally shorter. Wine offerings might not have returned to the breadth of those pre-Prohibition years until maybe the 1980s at most Italian restaurants. Americans still were not big wine drinkers for decades. Piero Selvaggio commented about the early days of his landmark Valentino restaurant that “the few people that drank wine took us by surprise.” It was still the days of cocktails. The order was usually “the martini…in the 1970s that was what people drank with a meal…three of them was standard,” something much more American than Italian. And not the most ideal complement to the food.
 
Things would eventually improve concerning wine at Italian restaurants.

Renganeschi's Saturday Night by John Sloan, 1912 - Art Institute of Chicago

During a visit earlier this summer to Produttori del Barbaresco, the famed wine cooperative in the village of Barbaresco, my host, Michela Cucca, brought up the event that really increased the winery’s notoriety, its reputation, and sales. It was in November 2016 when Wine Spectator announced, to the surprise of the winery, that one of its wines was picked as the fifth best wine released that year, the Produttori del Barbaresco 2011 Asili Riserva, a bottling from a single vineyard in what is probably Barbaresco’s most famous cru.
 
She said that phones immediately began ringing and ringing, with customers around the world hoping to purchase bottles of the wine, which was just $59 on release. It had already sold out, as all of its wines do, with nothing at all left even for the employees, but that great acclaim, from the most widely circulated American wine publication has had a huge residual impact for the reputation of the winery and subsequent sales. Cucca said that Wine Spectator has been the most important for them but some other outlets including James Suckling, Wine Advocate and Vinous influence sales along with the well-regarded British publication, Decanter, if less so. Interestingly, Italian publications have not been as influential in terms of impacting sales. Though the wine is produced in Italy, what Americans think about it – some subset of informed Americans, at least – really factors into the sales success of wines. The US is a rather big market, after all.

In the glass case facing the street at a picturesque old butcher shop in the heart of the small town of Nizza Monferrato, I saw something I had never witnessed in three trips to Piedmont, steaks, a display of attractive cuts of beef steak. Piedmont is very proud of its Fassona beef – it’s now a protected product, IGP – something that’s advertised on seemingly every restaurant menu but never, almost never, in steak form. As a typical steak-loving American, I have found this very odd.
 
What you’ll find there is mostly carne crudo, brasato and bollito misto. Carne crudo is a popular antipasto. Light-tasting yet flavorful, I’ve big a big fan of that minced, raw beef or veal from the Fassona cattle that is often dressed just with some excellent Ligurian olive oil, and maybe shaved white truffles in the fall, for a nice bump to the bill. Carne crudo is the Piemontese take, and a tastier one for me, on the French steak tartare and a regular order for me when there. Brasato is a cut of roast that’s braised in red wine, Barolo sometimes, more often a cheaper bottle and the resulting dish is rich and unctuous when done well like I had recently in Turin.
 
Bolitto misto is an array of boiled meats that I’ve managed to miss in my trips to northern Italy; it’s a cold-weather preparation, in part. During my last trip to Piedmont a few years earlier, in the exhibit hall in Nizza Monferrato where we had lunch and a wine tasting, there were banners announcing the annual festival the upcoming Sunday for the prized beef: “Fiera del Bue Grasso e del Manzo di Razza Piemontese.” One of the winemakers at the table explained that the culinary attraction of the event was boiled beef. I was rather surprised. Disappointed, too, and asked if there was any regional tradition of cooking steak with this beef. A touch embarrassed, he said no and could not think of any place in Italy other than Florence and environs that typically prepares steaks as part of its cuisine.
 
That’s been my understanding, too. That Florentine steak culture resulting in the large cuts of bistecca alla fiorentina, is a result of a strong and specific British influence, which other areas did not have. British troops supposedly introduced it to Florence in the mid-19th century and the throngs of British tourists for decades to there and nearby Tuscan countryside – Chiantishire – helped stoke demand and create a legacy. Though Piedmont had cows like Tuscany, if maybe not nearly as many, it had far fewer British tourists.
 
Steaks and steakhouses are becoming more popular in Piedmont, I was told by my host at Produttori del Barbaresco, if slowly. When it appears, it is often with beef from elsewhere, Scotland, Argentina or Japan. That probably has something to do with that Fassona breed, too, according to her. That cattle provides exceptionally lean meat which makes well-suited for being served raw. Conversely, that lack of fat, intramuscular fat, less so for steaks.
 
As an American visiting Piedmont, for your regular beef consumption, you will have to be content with cool, raw beef or richly braised in red wine. Boiled, too, I guess. Beef for dinner can actually be very enjoyable even when it is not broiled or grilled in thick juicy, meaty cuts.

Was in luck to visit Monferrato and the Langhe during white truffle season a few years ago. Carne crudo dressed up.

I recently returned from a trip to Piedmont: Turin, Monferrato and the Langhe, with plenty of wine on the agenda, and more on the table and afterwards. One of the winery visits was to the historic and well-known Pio Cesare, which is best known for its Barolos, and is the only winery left in the delightful town of Alba. The general, public tour and tasting we had booked was very entertaining and definitely recommended. Our guide, Davide, did a terrific job over the two hours or so.
 
One of the interesting things he pointed out in the subterranean cellars built around Roman ruins was a bottle from the first vintage packaged like that for commercial sales, from 1916, which was shown next to one from a recent release, 2018. The bottles were nearly identical. This might be a part of the winery’s success over the years, work from a graphic artist: an attractive and recognizable label, and then name, that is easy to remember and discern when shopping for wine.
 
Branding can be very important. From the worlds of consumer foods and dining, there are the Keebler elves, Frosted Flakes’ Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Coca-Cola logo, and McDonald’s arches to point out a few of the most well-known. Pio Cesare is not nearly in the same category in terms of consumer recognition, but its products are much more enjoyable, and natural, to be sure.

After getting stuck in a museum for an additional hour or so by what we later heard was the largest hailstorm in memory in Turin and first finishing a warming bicerin in the closest open café, I ordered a half carafe of Dolcetto, a grape that is widely planted in the region. It was shockingly awful, even when I felt in need of a drink, suggestive to me more the output of a process plant than a winery. My mom, who long has had a tolerance for very inexpensive wines, said it tasted “worse than a bad jug of Gallo.” That was just the first of three mostly bad carafes of house wines.
 
During my first few trips to Italy, when both my wallet and palate were lighter, I really enjoyed the house red wines. That was often in Tuscany, though, where there is more inexpensive good red wine than elsewhere in Italy. But that held true a little over a decade ago, too.
 
The second bad one was at a humble and unexpectedly quite good trattoria in the hills overlooking Santa Margherita Ligure. The salumi and cheeses to start were terrific, even at times rustic. With the first sip of the red wine from the carafe, I pronounced to my chef sister-in-law, “This is grim-tasting.” The seven of us at the table didn’t come close to finishing it. The third was in a humble, friendly spot in over-touristy Portofino. The meal satiated the hungry, the fizzy white wine called Verduzzo – maybe actually from Friuli – was mediocre, maybe that.
 
The last carafe was actually quite tasty and well-made, a Dolcetto, too. After a couple pleasing sips I looked at the glass bearing the name of the winery, Cantina di Nizza, the nearby cooperative winery where we had more than a few surprising and each very enjoyable boxes of wine in varying sizes and labels with low prices.
 
With more wineries eschewing vini sfusi, wine sold in bulk, inexpensive carafes of wine are seemingly tougher to get in restaurants in Italy. Also, I am certainly asking for more these days.

While finishing an excellent dinner at the trattoria Scannabue in Turin’s San Salvario neighborhood at the very start of the trip to Italy last month, we audibly noticed a dish just brought to the table next to us. The two diners at it, who had been speaking only in Italian, happen to respond in excellent English, one currently living in Seattle.
 
Friends originally from Bologna, after some talk about the dishes on the table, wine and the restaurant, we learned that they had once run a website that recommended restaurants throughout Italy as both traveled to much of Italy for work and vacation but eventually felt they could not compete with better-funded sites and publications like from Gambero Rosso. Hearing that led to more questions from me about which regional and local cuisines in Italy they thought were in the best.
 
The relative merits of regional and local cuisines in Italy is a topic of interest to many, myself definitely included. Italian geography and history – along with a climate suited to many wonderful fruits, vegetables, grains and wines – has given the country numerous distinct and often thrilling dishes and culinary traditions. Many of these have found homes in the U.S. As Italy has become wealthier after the Second World War, more people can fully partake in those, expanding old traditions while new ones have also arisen. And restaurants in Italy are better than ever.
 
Being from Bologna, the two thought Bolognese cuisine was the best, of course. That food exemplified by a richness featuring fresh pasta like tortellini and ragù Bolognese, and lasagna and foodstuffs like prosciutto, mortadella and Parmigian-Reggiano is often the top choice of many Italians I’ve queried over the years, but which would assuredly be after their hometown cooking wherever that was. The also-rich Piedmontese cuisine, known best for the luxurious aromatic white truffles each fall, was likely second, and that Turin was a great city in which to dine. They agreed with me that Tuscan was surely overrated and less interesting, though it does have Italy’s only culture of steak; Marchigiano from across the Apennines is certainly better, as the Marche is actually more beautiful, too.  And they quickly dismissed the Milanese cooking: “It only has two dishes.” Two dishes? I asked. There is costoletta, osso buco and risotto alla Milanese, to start.  “Costoletta and rice with the sauce of the osso buco, that’s just two.”  Maybe they passionately hated both AC and Inter Milan.
 
That was humorous, and typical of still-current Italian regional and local chauvinism. But he might have had somewhat of a point about Milan. Noted Italian cookbook author Ada Boni wrote, even in the 1960s, that “Good Milanese cooking is rare in the city itself, but in the old part of the city and in certain trattoria in the outer suburbs it may still be found by the enterprising and inquisitive gastronome.” And the city has certainly changed in the intervening six decades while it has drawn more people from elsewhere in Italy elsewhere.
 
I feel the need to dine some more in Milan. And elsewhere in much of Italy, for that matter. I have to Sicily and the Sicilian cooking, with access to large fish like tuna and swordfish and other seafood is regarded to be among the healthiest in Italy along with being very flavorful. Roman cooking has given the world, and tourist Italy, the famed pasta dishes cacio e pepe, all ‘Amatriciana and Carbonara. And a fourth, that they don’t’ publicize anymore, Alfredo. There is also carcioli all romana and carciofa all giudi pinzimonio, abbacchio, suckling lamb, porchetta, saltimbocca and pizza al taglio and a trattoria tradition for robust than elsewhere. Neapolitan, often quickly cooked excepting its famed Sunday ragù, has given much to the Italian-American fare I grew up with is probably my favorite though I have spent less than a week in the Naples area. Pizza, spaghetti, and marinara, octopus, mussels, clams, squid often topping that pasta. Mozzarella. Eggplant Parmesan. Among some of the others, Venetian, with its fruits of the Lagoon, robust, delicious Abbruzzese, and lighter Ligurian, with its olive oil-laden pesto, focaccia and dishes with small fish.
 
It’s a fun subject to muse about the regional and local Italian cooking, as we did for a little while with some strangers who were quite passionate about it. I have since thought what should be included when talking about cuisines. The dishes, the foodstuffs, maybe the wine, too, and likely the quality of the restaurants, which is where nearly all of us experience the cuisines.
 
More research is needed, even if the question doesn’t really need to be answered. Just explored.

Last week, driving to Santa Margherita Ligure from Piedmont, I instigated a lunch stop in Recco to sample the famed Focaccia di Recco at its source, Manuelina. This is, in fact, its commercial originator way back in 1885. I was in the area and had to make a small detour try it.
 
Most Houstonians might only know, even if just by name, Focaccia di Recco from the version at Rosie Cannonball, a stalwart on its menus since opening a few years ago that has drawn raves and press from Alison Cook in Houston Chronicle, Eric Sandler in CultureMap and Houstonia among others. Quite distinct from the puffy, familiar focaccia found throughout Liguria, which I love – usually flecked with some rosemary when I have to order it – the Recco version features unleavened dough and is essentially a baked, thin, flat sandwich filled with cheese. Consisting of two very thin pieces of olive oil-laden dough featuring finely milled “top quality” high-gluten flour interspersed with dollops of stracchino, a creamy, mild fresh cow’s milk cheese from Lombardy, then drizzled with more olive oil, some salt and it is finally baked in circular cutouts in copper pans in a moderately hot oven until crisp.
 
Arriving at the table looking a lot like a Tex-Mex quesadilla, the result is that kind of cooking alchemy that you happily come upon every now and then, with the combination of seemingly simple straightforward components makes for something much more interesting and amazingly pleasurable. At the first bite I could understand why this dish has resonated so loudly. The classic version with just cheese, La Focaccia di Recco col formaggio IGP – it has its own protected designation – was crisp, gooey and wonderful. It made me think of a lighter, more refined, more Italian version of a grilled cheese sandwich. We also ordered version topped with slices of culatello, the cured heart of the prosciutto, and another with nduja, the greasy, piquant Calabrian fresh sausage. Both were terrific, though my favorite was the original, unadorned, and I had a tough time not picking up yet another wedge. With good reason Italian dining guidebook author Fred Plotkin called over a quarter century ago, “probably the most addictive food on the planet.” Even my Parisian-trained pastry chef sister-in-law was dutifully impressed with the focaccias.
 
Though the Focaccia di Recco was the reason for our stop, the rest of the meal was excellent and you can be assured of having a very enjoyable time without even ordering one. Anchovies and butter to start then a traditional Ligurian pansotti, a stuffed pasta, in a walnut sauce were both superb. The attention to quality extended to the top-notch German-style pilsner on tap from a long-standing small brewery in the Veneto and a tasty bottle of Rossese di Dolceacqua – which is not always so as we were to find out later – from the very short list of wines. Service was efficient, friendly accommodating and the lunch was comfortable and delightful throughout. The adjacent ristorante is Michelin-recommended and the quality of this focaccia-focused trattoria is indicative of the great utility of the Michelin guide, even for the related restaurants.
 
But, it you are going to visit, get the Focaccia di Recco, as every table in the dining room did, too.
 
Manuelina Focacceria Bistrot
Via Roma 296
16036 Recco (GE)
manuelinafocacceria.it/recco/

Returning from two weeks in northwestern Italy, I was struck how often I saw anchovies and butter on menus, first in Turin then elsewhere in Piedmont and later Liguria. A composition that always includes bread, sometimes toasted, might initially seem odd to most American diners. But the combination of salty, maybe slightly oily anchovy filets and rich, soft cultured butter along with a base of bread for works very well and makes for an excellent initial bite when dining out. It’s also an item that used to be seen fairly often on Italian menus of old in this country, part of the outsize legacy of immigrant restaurateurs from Piedmont many decades ago.
 
Though not near the ocean, Piedmont has a long culinary tradition with preserved anchovies from trade with nearby Liguria. It’s also got more cows than most other regions in Italy and long influence from butter-loving France just across the Alps.
 
My first experience with it on this trip was during lunch at Campamac, an ambitious, Michelin-cited restaurant in the village of Barbaresco. It arrived dramatically as an amuse bouche on three separate plates: oil-cured anchovies from Liguria, softened butter already portioned and a thick slice of slightly brown, rustic, freshly made sourdough bread. It made for a delicious couple of bites and start to the meal. A few days later at the excellent, casual Manuelina Bistrot in coastal Recco, I ordered the Pane, burro d'Isigny e acciughe salate del cantabrico for 10 euros – under the heading “Per Iniziare,” to start – sourcing widely to feature the lauded, creamy, rich butter, whipped, from Normandy and artisanal, salt-cured Spanish anchovy filets atop a thick, cracker-like toasted bread. A little different, with a more softened, lighter butter and more contrasting texture, I really enjoyed it also, a terrific preface to the rest of the meal.
 
This is a simple dish that I wish would make a return to menus here. Only three ingredients, but which need to be of high quality for it to work. It’s something easy to do at home, too, well-suited for entertaining guests as appetizers who might be at least somewhat open-minded.

Just returned from an enjoyable two-and-a-half week vacation in northwestern Italy and across the border in Nice. The wines of Piedmont, arguably Italy’s top region for red wine and wine overall, were a prime reason for the itinerary. An indicator of quality, the region is home to the most number of DOCG wines – the country’s top classification – at 19 – Tuscany is second at 11, and it also has the most of the second highest, DOC, tied at 41. Piedmont’s most famous wines, Barolo and Barbaresco, were on the docket and I visited several top producers, but most of the wine I drank was most commonly planted red grape there, the almost always enjoyable, and often much better than that, Barbera. And most of that came from a box. Several boxes, really. It was too palatable and fairly too easy on the wallet.
 
Among the wineries I had scoped out before the trip was one I had never heard of before, Cantina di Nizza, the local cooperative, which was just a six-minute drive from the house we rented. The reason was that it sold some of its wine in boxes, 10-liter boxes, something that I had never heard of, and for a song. I felt I had to pick one of those giant packagings. And, maybe, my family drinks wine quite readily. But these wines, in a half-dozen different versions, were easily the best wines I have ever had from a box, including at least a couple that Eric Asimov had touted last year. The Barbera Fruttoso, made with unclassified grapes, was easy to consume, 12.5% alcohol, with nice berry on the nose and palate, balanced acidity, and a fairly long, mostly smooth taste; well-noted as “ideal as a table wine, to accompany everyday lunches.” It was priced at a ridiculously low tariff of €22,50 for 10 liters. That works out to $1.81 per 750 ml bottle, while tasting better than probably most of the $15-20 bottles I purchase here. This would be a daily drinker if available here, even at a much higher price.
 
The best wine in a box we had was the L’Audace, a Barbera 2020 DOC, with a richer, more pronounced and serious taste at 14.5%. We went through a couple boxes of this, too, albeit at the punier 5-liter size, but pricier €23. Not just these two, but another Barbera option, Corposo, a fuller expression than the Fruttoso, was also very nice. And I especially enjoyed a Cortese DOC. These are good wines. Each of the several boxes we tasted were quite well-made as I am sure the other ones are, also. There are ten wines available in boxes, from 3- to 10-liter.
 
I’d recommend visiting Cantina di Nizza if in the area. It has a number of other wines, in bottles, some of which have earned two bicchiere from Gambero Rosso, best value citation also from Gambero Rosso, and medals from the top British wine publication, Decanter, ranging from under €10 up to just €24. Though less atmospheric than most other wineries in the region, the wines are of high quality and even those in box can be tasted before buying. I found it fun to sample wine poured straight from a 10,000 or so-Hl stainless steel holding vessel, which was quick and unpretentious, if a tad incongruent with the caliber of the wines.
 
Cantina di Nizza
Strada Alessandria, 57
14049 Nizza Monferrato (Asti) – Italy
 
tel. +39 0141 721348

I am a big fan of Elro and it’s unique, smart and very approachable take on upscale casual dining, believing it was one of the top new restaurants to open in the city last year. Texas Monthly recently opined the same thing. Having dined there about ten times already – it’s nearby and easy for me for lunch which helps – and being sucker for a good sandwich, especially an Italian-accented sandwich, I was looking forward to its second sandwich offering, the Meatball Sub that debuted after my last visit.
 
And that is a favorite for many. The meatball sub finished number thirteen on a YouGov survey of the country’s most popular sandwiches a few years ago. I do like it when done well or even fairly well, though it’s number three for me among hot Italian-American sandwiches. With family roots in Chicago, Italian beef has been tops for me probably followed by Veal Parm – though I haven’t had a good one of those in a quarter century. Elro’s version of the meatball sub might change my sandwich pecking order.
 
Its meatball sub was likely the best of that genre I’ve ever had. Arriving solo on a plate with its two halves enclosed in aluminum foil, it doesn’t make a striking appearance. Unwrapping a half of very hot sandwich gingerly reveals a crusty sesame seed-topped hoagie roll filled with beef and pork meatballs, melted provolone and mozzarella, with a judicious amount of a tomato sauce and, somewhat unusually, big leaves of basil. The meatballs, half pork and half beef, were soft and flavorful, and were complemented perfectly with the melted white cheeses, a lighter tomato sauce, the fragrant green herbs, and the wonderful, crusty bread, the same that’s used for The Hoagie. I made a small mess devouring it. Though a hearty sandwich, this is the freshest, lightest version of a meatball sub I’ve ever had: better bread, higher quality, tastier meatballs, the bit of basil, and fresh-tasting rather than a long-cooked tomato sauce.
 
Not so not inexpensive at $18, but a fair price for the quality and what will be a filling meal for most. It might be a favorite, too.
 
Elro
2405 Genesee (at Fairview), 77006
elrohtx.com