Fabio Viviani’s Osteria Firenze, Cafe Firenze (8/10)

 

 

Chef Fabio Viviani Brings Italy to L.A. with Café Firenze and Osteria Firenze

 

Young Celebrity Italian Chef Fabio Viviani, the finalist who was also voted most popular on season five of "Top Chef” seems to be everywhere these days, from his national book tour to charity events all over town, and most gratefully, as a judge for the finals of the C-Cap (Careers in Culinary Arts Program), but it has only added to the inimitable authentic Italian cuisine and high spirits at his restaurants.      

 

For proof, just visit Osteria Firenze at one end of the valley in Toluca Lake  and his newly revamped Café Firenze in Moorpark. Dark and luxurious, the 500+ seat restaurant with two-story ceilings, walls of wine racks and a back patio sprawls quietly in an open sun-bleached mall.  No valet!

 

The chef is not only grounded and intelligent but polite and funny, even when bombarded to pose for photos in a crowd, where we first met up with him.  Then, after he cooked for us last week at his restaurant, hours before he was to leave for a 50-day filming trip, he sent a gracious thank you note the same day for the photos we sent him.  And his command of English after only five years is nothing short of astonishing.

 

So is his story.  It begins with him as a “kid whose family was way down there,” so way down there he wore cardboard in his shoes.  He remembers “getting up with his grandfather at 3:00 a.m. to get the freshest fish, and tending a garden behind the house.  He went to work at the age of 12, “in the only place there was to work at this age, in a restaurant, peeling potatoes in a room without windows when the other kids were riding their bikes outside.” 

 

This is the basis for his hard work and dedication.   No wonder he can say, referring to his all-around success as cookbook author and restaurant owner, “I wake up happy.”   . 

Fabio is already giving back with the Firenze4Kids Foundation, which includes a major online resource library.

 

And can he ever cook.  He has traveled across Europe and is trained in classic Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, incorporated into his excellent, sophisticated Super-Tuscan dishes.

 

He works perfectly with naked. Resemble Greek dolmades, Malfatti al Burro– Naked Spinach & Ricotta Cheese Dumpling is made with Brown Butter, Sage, Nutmeg and Shaved Parmesan ($15.95)  As filling and flavorsome as any pasta, part of the fun lies in the look, the cheese “substituting” for pasta easily mistaken for it.  Fabio aptly describes the silky Brown Butter Sage Sauce, which brings the forests of his childhood Tuscany to mind, as “simple, yet rich.”

 

Even succulent dark duck meat and pasta becomes a light dish in Trofie con Anatra e Finocchio  ($16.95), Homemade Trofie Pasta with Duck, Caramelized Fennel, Parmesan cheese.  The quirky, appealing little Trofie is seldom found outside its Ligurian home. It’s so, so light because there are no eggs, just flour and water.  Each piece is different because it’s shaped individually by hand into little squiggly shapes, tapered at the ends (resembling German spatzle on this day). 

 

Beef Carpaccio is served with roasted mushrooms with crumbled blue cheese, olive oil and balsamic reduction.   More tempting dishes include Insalata d’Anatra – Crispy Duck Salad ($17.95) Duck Confit, Roasted Mushrooms, Sundried Tomatoes, Pine Nuts, Mixed Greens and Balsamic Dressing, and Penne al Coniglio, Rabbit Ragu’ Penne with black olives ($14.95).

 

The Café Firenze and Osteria Firenze kitchens make almost everything from scratch, and with farm fresh produce when available.  Meats are purchased by the rack and hand trimmed on site, true Italian restaurant style, then aged 35-45 days.  Fish, other than sushi grade tuna and salmon is sourced daily.

 

This in no small part can be accomplished because of capable management by dedicated co-owner Jacopo Falleni, Fabio’s longtime friend who he met in restaurant school  Scuola Alberghiera Aurelio Saffi in Florence.  Café Firenze is most of all fun and it all starts at the top and comes down the line with servers, as we experienced with Stacie.

 

Jacopo speaks of bringing Fabio to the United States on his second culinary go-round here, as he easily as someone else might of a trip to the corner store.  This was after he first came to the United States and  opened his gelato shop in Manhattan.  He smiles ruefully.  Unfortunately for him it was during 9/11; fortunately for us he returned to sunny California). 

 

Renaissance man Jacopo is a gelato expert and a mixologist. In his Strawberry Balsamic Martini (fresh strawberries, muddled lime juice, vanilla vodka), beautiful, crisscrossing threads of reduced balsamic line the glass.  And his sinful Valrhona chocolate gelato can make a chocolate fan out of anyone.

 

He and Fabio are currently working on opening the Firenze4Kids Foundation, which will emphasize the promotion of health and wellness for kids through good nutrition and kidshealthcafe.com, a resource library.

 

My wish for Chef Fabio, but mostly for us, is that our attention go to his food and service at Café Firenze and Osteria Firenze, so that unlike Roy Yamaguchi (Roy’s), Thomas Keller (Bouchon)and Sam Marvin (La Bottega Louie), another local chef will not have to leave and make a national success elsewhere in order to return here with a namesake restaurant and infrequent appearances. 

 

www.cafefirenze.net , 563 W Los Angeles Ave, Moorpark, CA 93021, (805) 532-0048.  www.Firenzeosteria.com. 4212 Lankershim Boulevard, Toluca Lake, CA 91602.