Sacramento Bee - 2012 - Restaurant review
Counter Culture: Café Vinoteca a tasty choice for pizza and pasta - By Allen Pierleoni - Bee Restaurant Critic
“I love pie, and this is a great one,” said lunch pal Bruce Parks, quickly demolishing (with a little help) a tall wedge of banana cream pie.
He should know. Bruce and wife Judy Parks run an international gourmet cake-delivery business (www. chocolatebakery.com) and an online bakery (www. tartsandtruffles.com). Judy has taught baking classes at American River College for 20 years, and lucky Bruce gets to sample.
“The only thing we didn’t make (in the kitchen) for this pie was the bananas,” said our beyond-the-call-of-duty server, Dawna Paul.
Any chance of initiating a pie fight with the pie-eating folks at the table next to us? You know – act now, apologize later.
“No, because I would have to clean it up,” Dawna said.
We were at a window-side table inside Café Vinoteca at Arden Town Center. The Italian bistro’s immediate neighbors are Chinois City Cafe (www.chinoiscitycafe.com) and Danielle’s Creperie (www. daniellescreperie.com), places we’ve visited and liked.
Café Vinoteca is a high- energy neighborhood kind of place, largely populated with regulars who know each other by sight, if not by name. It may have a local angle, but its fare easily competes with higher-end, more-formal Italian restaurants in our area.
Its lengthy lunch menu shows soups and salads (grilled prawn Louie, grilled romaine lettuce), small plates (meatball sliders, Kobe beef carpaccio), panini (eggplant Parmesan, grilled chicken), pasta (much of it house-made, served with mild, subtle sauces), and soup-salad-panini combos. Prices range from $4 to $16.
The from-scratch mushroom ravioli had sold out at dinner the night before, so we started with a small plate of gnocchi – tender pasta pillows in Alfredo sauce (with a dash of nutmeg), a fine mix. For the heck of it, we added grilled and sliced Molinari-brand Italian sausage – crispy and fragrant, with ideal texture. Good start.
We were still in a pasta mood, so moved to spaghetti carbonara, a concoction likely created in Rome in the 1950s. Or not. Like so many dishes that have come out of Italy, its roots are hard to dig up. Which doesn’t matter, since it’s always so darn good.
For this version, a well-whisked whole raw egg is mixed with hot pasta water and grated Parmesan cheese, then poured over and mixed with steaming spaghetti and topped with crisp pieces of pancetta (Italian bacon). We added freshly ground black pepper to the al dente pasta and rich sauce. Hey – where’d that go?
Clam-topped pizza is an everyday item in the pizzerias of New York and New Jersey. But finding a pizza loaded with clams and mussels in California brought us up short.
The menu description says, “Spicy white wine and tomato sauce, shaved fennel, basil, garlic.” We consulted and ended up asking the kitchen to tweak the pizza and surprise us.
Turned out to be the best dish of the day. The chef brushed olive oil over a thin crisp-crust shell, added slices of fresh Roma tomato, peppery arugula, sautéed fennel, garlic and a touch of heat from red pepper flakes. Topping all that were plump, expertly handled clams and mussels (out of their shells, of course).
“Everything about this is a home run, especially the freshness of the ingredients,” Bruce said. Agreed.
One of three daily specials was bucatini (bigger than spaghetti, and hollow) with smoked salmon in a creamy dill-and-caper sauce. The luscious chunks of salmon were mildly salty, the capers super-salty. Did the salt from the capers infuse the salmon with salt, or was the salmon already salty? Did the kitchen mistakenly add salt to the dish when none was called for? Whatever, a salt overload was going on.
Imagination and tradition seem to meet in Café Vinoteca’s kitchen. One example is its timpano, a classic Italian dish served only at dinner the last Thursday of each month.
To see one being built, watch the 1996 movie “Big Night,” starring Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, Minnie Driver and Isabella Rosselini.
Or listen to Janie Desmond Ison, co-owner with husband Jim of Café Vinoteca and the more casual Steamers in Old Sacramento (www. steamersoldsac.com).
“We line a huge kettle with puff pastry and layers of penne pasta, sliced ham, meatballs, grilled zucchini and eggplant, hard-cooked eggs, and marinara and béchamel sauces,” she explained. “It’s wrapped in more pastry, baked in the kettle and served by the slice ($18). It’s like an adventure on your plate – you don’t know where you’re going next.”
We’ve had it. We love it. We’ll be back for more.
SAC Ticket - 2007 - Restaurant review
A Fine Balance By Mike Dunne - Bee Restaurant Critic
Cafe Vinoteca is a ristorante masquerading as a trattoria. In Italy, the former is Roman sophistication, the latter Tuscan simplicity. At Cafe Vinoteca, the two merge naturally, creating a hybrid that is part neighborhood joint, part destination restaurant. Cafe Vinoteca’s origin as a trattoria in 1996 remains in its casual and convivial interior design, with tables close, an open bar along one side, an exhibition kitchen to the back, and a dessert display case swelling into the dining area.
While servers are snazzily attired in black slacks, black aprons and olive-green shirts, their attitude runs more to bantering playfulness than chilly formality, thereby reinforcing the welcoming embrace of a trattoria. Ristorante comes into play with the menu, which the husband-and-wife team of Jim Ison and Janie Desmond Ison have been patiently and precisely upgrading since they bought Cafe Vinoteca three years ago. In recent months they kicked up the aspirations of the menu a few more degrees with the hiring of Charles Harrison as executive chef and Cindy Lemmon as pastry chef.
Harrison, most recently chef de cuisine with Masque Ristorante in El Dorado Hills, brings to the kitchen a flair and creativity that expands the definition of Italian cooking without abandoning its identity, accessibility and dependence on quality seasonal ingredients.
His inventiveness is both whimsical and studied, no more so than with an entree of panko-crusted, pan-roasted Alaskan halibut topped with a foamy emulsion of spring onions, the latter a frenzied blend of onion and egg white that added a sweet accent to the white, moist and fresh filet ($24). While the halibut was exceptional, Harrison showed that he also pays attention to the supporting details with sides of sautéed organic chard and a warm salad of spring peas and fava beans.
No dish was more intricate and original than his nest of house-made red-hued tomato fettuccine topped with two colossal shrimp and scallop sausages as light, moist and finely textured as quenelles ($24). It was a wonderfully buoyant dish, its seasoning depending largely on the saltiness of sea beans, which all of a sudden are showing up on menus hereabouts. Sea beans go by various other names, including pousse-pied, marsh samphire and aquatic asparagus. Long and green, they could be mistaken for a slim version of Chinese long beans, but with a salty as well as an herbal flavor.
Other examples of Harrison’s artistry include ravioli filled with ricotta and goat cheese in a lemon chive cream sauce with shaved asparagus ($14), braised Colorado lamb shanks with a dried-cherry gremolata ($22), and grana-crusted chicken breast with a wild-mushroom gravy ($19).
Cafe Vinoteca hasn’t abandoned entirely its trattoria heritage, however. Nothing was more honest and basic than a huge roasted pork chop so moist and cleanly flavored that the only seasoning it needed was its pan juices, though an accompanying medley of artichoke hearts, red potatoes, fava beans, asparagus, carrot and peas brightened the presentation with spring colors and flavors ($19).
Pizza also is on the premises as a small, busy and pretty appetizer “pizzetta,” vibrant with a concentrated pesto, fava beans, pine nuts and feta that was a bit too richly flavored and liberally applied for the pesto and fava beans ($9).
On the last Thursday of each month, Cafe Vinoteca also continues to bake a massive timbale, a drum of thick pastry enclosing penne pasta bound with a refined bechamel and alternating layers of grilled vegetables, homey meatballs, boiled eggs and ham, all resting in a rich and complex marinara ($18 per husky wedge).
Falling somewhere between the traditional and the modern are such salads as grilled hearts of romaine with a creamy gorgonzola dressing, red onion and bacon, big enough and rich enough to be an entree ($10), and a neatly symmetrical arrangement of pickled red beets, goat cheese, candied pecans and flourishing mache ($8).
While Cafe Vinoteca’s dessert menu includes such Italian standards as tiramisu, it also prides itself on traditional American finales like a fresh, moist and fine-crumbed chocolate sour-cream layer cake with a thick and silken icing ($7); a tall and homey apple pie with flaky crust and astute seasoning ($7); and the freshest and best- balanced interpretation of banana cream pie on the local dining scene ($6). Sacramento restaurants long have tried to come up with a version of banana cream pie to match or exceed the wedge served at iconic Frank Fat’s, and Cafe Vinoteca has done it with an arching slice packed with thick slices of prime-time banana on a sturdy crust, capped strikingly with whipped cream, and punctuated with a caramel sauce in perfect proportion to the rest of the components.
Cafe Vinoteca’s wine list is a smartly assembled mix of mostly Californian and Italian releases that range from the readily accessible (Bogle’s sauvignon blanc, Renwood’s Fiddletown zinfandel, Kendall-Jackson’s Grand Reserve chardonnay) to the dear (Quilceda Creek’s cabernet sauvignon, Gaja’s Ca’ Marcanda Magari, Antinori’s Tignanello). That the list includes an unusually high proportion of pinot noirs from Oregon is a sign that someone both careful and adventurous assembled the selection. Several wines are available by the glass as well as the bottle, with generous pours.
Servers consistently were amiable, adroit and quick to correct shortcomings without being asked, such as lighting a tabletop candle and securing a wobbly table. To judge by the handshakes and hugs between servers and guests, Cafe Vinoteca’s clientele is made up to a large extent by longtime regulars. So far, the upscaling of the place looks not to be alienating any of them, and it isn’t likely to as long as the Isons continue to strike this unusual yet graceful balance between trattoria and ristorante.
Sacramento Magazine - Editors Pick
Best Banana Cream Pie …Sweet banana slices meet up with vanilla custard and a flaky crust. Grad a fork and dig in. It’s so good you’ll want seconds…
SAC Ticket - 2007 - New…favorites
New restaurants fill the bill for closed favorites By Mike Dunne - Bee Restaurant Critic
…Yesterday: For 12 years, Maurizio Contartese gamely tried to make a go of his Bravo Ristorante Italiano along Fair Oaks Boulevard between Howe Avenue and Munroe Street, just in front of a Borders Books but secluded behind a Swanson’s Cleaners. He gave up a year ago. Contributors to the Yelp thread regret that his rustic Italian cookery, his boisterous parties inspired by the movie “Big Night” and the piano music of the late Mario Ferrari no longer are around.
Today: Much of the spirit that distinguished Bravo is available nearby, just down Fair Oaks Boulevard at Watt Avenue, where Cafe Vinoteca occupies a compact corner of Fountain Plaza at Arden Town Center. Cafe Vinoteca’s interpretation of Italian cooking is broader and more contemporary than Bravo’s, but the relaxed if lively setting is just as warm, and servers strike a similar balance between propriety and good humor. For music, an acoustic guitarist appears Wednesdays, and on the last Thursday of each month the restaurant bakes a large, complex and amusing timbale, the centerpiece pastry and pasta drum from “Big Night.
SACRAG.COM - Favorite Italian Restaurant
Italian Roundup …This is my new favorite Italian restaurant. Vinoteca scored high on quality of food, service and proximity to my apartment (a category in which it ranked 1st). The lasagna I ordered at my most recent visit turned out to be fantastic, while still being reasonably priced. The service was professional and attentive and the wine was superb. My beautiful companion went for a perfectly done fish dish which she raved about afterwards. I’m very happy that Vinoteca has undergone some changes recently because my previous visits had not been nearly as rewarding. The new owners, Jim & Janie Desmond Ison, have done a great job and truly, per their website, “facilitate an enjoyable dining experience for [their] guests by offering quality food, service and ambience.” Sounds like someone’s been reading their business management books again! Great job J&J. You are now my new favorite Italian joint in Sacramento and well priced…
Sacramento Bee - A Slice of Life
Top 4 list: Places to eat breakfast. By Samantha Moore - Loretto High School
This small Italian restaurant serves a wonderful Sunday brunch. It is slightly more expensive than the top three places, but it is well worth the extra money. Specialties include lemon ricotta pancakes and French toast…
Sacramento Magazine - Top 10
Zuppa Reale
We were blown away by the sheer size of Café Vinoteca’s Zuppa Reale, a mildly spicy Italian style bouillabaisse. The soup, or perhaps we should characterize it as a stew, was loaded with shellfish, including clams, scallops and shrimp, as well as moist chunks of salmon whitefish that tasted like sea bass. Pine nuts-an inspired an unusual addition-floated enticingly in the tomatoey broth, along with thin slices of celery. This seemingly bottomless bowl of zuppa fed to hungry adults and one shellfish-crazy-8-year-old, with several spoonfuls left to spare. If you’re a seafood lover it’s high time you scoot to Café Vinoteca…