More than Pizza

Some years ago, a trend started in Italian restaurants that is not quite over. Instead of your typical "Italian" restaurant, which would serve dishes from all over the boot, "regional" Italian cooking became the rage. Of course, we were flooded with Tuscan restaurants, but there were also Sicilian restaurants, and restaurants specializing in Emilia Romagna, and so forth.

Of course, if you went to these places, and if you knew anything about regional Italian cooking, you soon found out that they really weren't all that "regional." The argument that many restaurants made was that Italian cooking had become very cosmpolitan, and you could get risottto, which is very much a product of the north, in a Sicilian restaurant, and you could get arancini, the wonderful fried rice balls of Sicily, in Milan. So, really, what they were saying was that there was no such thing as regional Italian cooking. (My view is that it was really simply an attempt to make as much money as possible. If you have a truly Northern Italian restaurant and serve only polenta and no pasta, you will be out of business in a year. And so forth).

San Francisco has held on to its Italian (as in "Italian American") community more than just about any American city, except possibly St. Louis. And the regional distinctions are kept, much more than in other cities. "A16," which is a newer restaurant on our list, serves the food of Campania. If you're thinking, "Campania? Where's that?" " think Naples . It's the region where Naples is located. There's much more here, but people know Naples.

And Naples is the birthplace of pizza. So it's here. And many people come in to eat what is wonderful pizza. We've had it, at lunch, but we don't usually eat it at dinner, looking for more fun food. and we had that last night.

Many of the "cliches" of southern Italian food ultimately come out of Campania. Meatballs, sausage, hearty tasting pastas, braises. Yup, they're all here. And they're all done the way you either grew up with (as Annalena did, with Nana cooking), or as you wish you grew up. Maccaronara, with a tomato ragu and ricotta salata, was picture perfect and I was back home with Nana, eating it for lunch. Fusilli with a white ragu (note to file: Annalena has got to start her ragu project), came with fava beans and pecorino romano cheese. The fava beans were a bit of a dress up: Nana didn't have the time to do them. But it sure was good.

Onto yellowtail tuna with a relish of almonds, capers, lemon and parsley. One of the "secrets" of this region's cooking is in fact the use of almonds and other nuts in places where you might expect either breadcrumbs or cheese. With fish, it's a natural. And in the style of Italy and other parts of Europe, the fish is NOT rare, you do NOT get a choice. But juicy. Oh, was it juicy. "Arrotalato" sounded like what Annalena knew as bracciole growing up, and indeed, it was very close, and OH, so tasty. There are dishes that are so "mouth filling" with flavor, that you really can't finish them, because there's just too much of the flavor. Your buds get sated. That happened to Annalena. She wanted to eat the whole thing and couldn't. She was glad that Guy was there to help finish it up.

A16 also does something that I wish more restaurants did. When you order a main dish, you get a vegetable. But you get to pick it. There were five options. You can order them in addition to your dish, but you get one as a matter of right. How many times have you wanted to have something for dinner, but didn't want the carrots, or the potatoes, or whatever it came with, and were too intimidated to ask? Or, were told "no, the restaurant doesn't make substitutions" (Annalena either needs a VERY good reason for the failure to make the substitution, or she doesn't go back). Well, you get to design the plate, at no charge. So Annalena had a mix of mustard greens and "spigariello."

Now, I had never heard of spigariello, and in doing a bit of research, it is another example of the same vegetable, with different names, depending on where you're from. I DO know this vegetable: "cima di rape" It's turnip greens. It's the original broccoli rape. But in Campania this is what they call it. I call it good and good for you.

No room for dessert, but the wonderful hostesses and waitresses, who were born here but could easily fit into a poster for Italalian tourism, they are so pretty, and so friendly, and so unshakeable, insists that we try her favorite: strawberry yogurt swirl sorbet.

Yogurt in an Italian restaurant? Oh well. But it's good. It's made in Italian style. You can tell that the gelato maker only picked out the ripest berries, and that it's sweetened to Italian style (VERY sweet). And it's good.

We had the most expensive bottle of wine we have ever had in a restaurant: 124.00. It was actually more than the meal. Was it worth it? Well, frankly, no. It was good. But when you have been so well trained to drink good wine, your standards are higher.

One last thing about this restaurant, and SF dining generally. Our reservation was for 7. When we got there, the restaurant was packed. And this is typical of this city. If you go into a NY restaurant at 7, you could be the only person there. We have gone to restaurants at 6 and had to wait for a table, and 7 is a mob scene. But by 9, everyone has gone home.

I could speculate on why this is, but I will leave that for pundits, or for when Annalena is back home and sitting in her queen chair and issuing edicts again. For now, however, we must prep for something physical today. We have a big fancy dinner tonight at Campton Place.

And you'll all have to wait to read about it....