Restaurant critic Vedat Milor is an enormous fan of
Oliveto and the cooking of Chef Paul Canales. Here's Why.
Paul Canales’ cooking at OLIVETO is rustic,
flavorful, and bold. Canales is one of the very very few chefs in
the United States who can actually quarter a beast himself and concoct
various dishes from different organs and offals of an animal, often
pork. Indeed his cuisine is the opposite of many chi chi restaurants
in America, some crowned by Michelin, who buy little pieces of
indifferent meat and fish, vacuum packed, then set the sous vide
machine and go on to the business of decorating the plate nicely to
make it look “sophisticated”. The no nonsense owner of Oliveto, the
bearded teddy bear looking Bob Klein, is a stickler for developing
long term relationships with local suppliers, and he does not look
like the kind of person who will ever visit celebrity chef-style
restaurants in the States or in Italy. He travels often to Italy and
sometimes comes back with nice stuff like Tuber Pico Magnatum, which
is then immediately consumed in the restaurant.
Oliveto makes its own salumi and pates, and they are much better
than their competitors, including salumi made by the father of the
Mario Batali fame and also much better than the salumi the great
Bertoli now sells to the public (because he cannot use natural
casing). The anitpastis are often very good too, like the “”insalata
di carne cruda with castelmagno cheese” below:
But what I can’t resist are the pastas in
Oliveto. One reason I like them very much is because they use lots
of offals in their pasta dishes. Duck skin cracklings, kidney,
heart, etc. Their ragu is always the most flavorful I have
encountered anywhere outside Italy. So is their sugo. When they make
it, their “Agnolotti dal plin “ is almost as good as the one you eat
in Piemonte. Their combinations are usually intelligently thought
out too: take “Rye fettuccine with caviar, vodka and green onions”.
The average quality California caviar is put to intelligent use here as it
is not the main element of a dish, and its saltiness is carefully
set against the pungency-tartness of the rye. On the other hand, the
following day, when they ran out of caviar (the dish was offered for
a reasonable price of $17), they substituted “smoked haddock” for
the caviar, but changed the fettuccine to one made from “farro”.
Again the juxtaposition is well thought out, not random or copied
from a book. All said, there is one category of pasta where Oliveto
can compete with any restaurant in Italy; that is their “gnocchi”.
They use all kinds of combinations for their ethereal gnocchi
dishes, and I especially like the ones with creamy cheeses, such as
Robiola. The picture below, however, is the “Potato gnocchi with
braised Watson Farm Lamb.”
The main courses in Oliveto do not
disappoint. But there is one which I consider the best of its kind
in the States: they have the best pigeon from the Paine Farm. They
always grill it and change the condiments. The quality of the pigeon
is about the same level as what you find in Piemonte. They don’t age
it as much as they usually do in France. But the quality is
consistently good. The picture below is one we had in early 2007:
“Charcoal Grilled Paine Farm Pigeon with Fuyu Persimmon mostarda and
Liver crostini”. Notice that, as a testimony to the integrity of the
management philosophy, they call it “pigeon,” not “squab,” whereas
many restaurants in the States which serve average quality Pigeon
call it Squab.
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