Category Archives: Going Green and Sustainable

Take Five with Chef Gaston Acurio of La Mar in San Francisco, Who Dropped Out of Law School to Cook

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Chef-Owner Gaston Acurio of La Mar. (Photo courtesy of the chef)

Chef Gaston Acurio is probably more recognized in other parts of the world than he is in the United States. But no doubt that will change in the coming years as the 43-year-old chef expands his already impressive culinary empire further in this country with his bold take on contemporary Peruvian cuisine.

Acurio, who has 32 restaurants in 14 cities around the globe from Lima to Sao Paulo to Santiago, staked his first foothold in the United States two and a half years ago when he opened the lively La Mar Cebicheria on San Francisco’s Embarcadero with its striking turquoise sea-blue decor. In August, he will open his second La Mar in the United States — this one in New York’s Madison Square Park in the former Tabla restaurant site.

Last week, when Acurio was in town to work on new dishes at La Mar San Francisco, I had a chance to sit down and talk with him about his new partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, his future plans in San Francisco, and how his politician father came to terms with the fact that his only son was not going to follow in his footsteps.

Q: Is it more challenging to open restaurants in the United States than elsewhere?

A: No, our experience with San Francisco was great. The people in San Francisco love to eat and they recognize good food. In a lot of cities, you might go out to eat before you do something else. Here, you go out to eat just to go out to eat.

People here are also very open to trying new things. It’s not like trying to start a restaurant in Italy or Paris. Nobu closed his restaurant in Paris after only one year. Parisians just don’t want to spend $150 on ethnic food because they are proud of their own food. The same is true in Italy. Those are challenging places to open restaurants.

Q: Will you open more restaurants in the United States after the New York one is up and running?

A: Of course. We are looking right now in Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami.

The presence of Peruvian food in the United States is just getting started. We have a big responsibility to do it well or else we will close the door to those who come after us.

Q: Are most Americans confused about what Peruvian food is?

A: Most are. Peruvian food has five big influences: Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, African and Inca/South American. Cebiches are our flagship like sushi for the Japanese. Our stews are European-like. Our sauces are like African ones. And herbs and chilies are very important in our cuisine.

La Mar cebiche clasico made with halibut, habanero, and Peruvian corn and yam. (Photo courtesy of La Mar)

Q: With your partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, you will have ‘Seafood Watch Guides’ available for the public at your restaurants and you will serve only sustainable seafood at all of your restaurants? How challenging will that be?

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Three-Hour Polenta

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Heritage corn polenta, now available for sale at Oliveto Restaurant.

You might think I’m playing an April Fool’s joke on you when I tell you I spent three hours cooking polenta on the stovetop.

But I kid you not.

That was part of the careful cooking instructions I was given when Oliveto Restaurant in Oakland gave me  a sample bag of Floriani Red Flint Corn Polenta to try at home. The medium-course grind polenta is made from heritage red field corn that was originally developed in Northern Italy. It is whole-grain milled, meaning that the entire grain — including all the germ, bran and endosperm — is milled without separating any of those components out.

Because of that and because it’s a harder corn, it takes three  hours to cook.

I was ready to start lifting more weights at the gym for this polenta workout that awaited me. My husband half-jested that he was going to hire a legal day-laborer to help me.

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Oliveto Keeps On Going Strong

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Crudo of local halibut with shaved purple artichokes.

Twenty-five years is a very long time in restaurant years.

But that’s just how long Oliveto in Oakland has managed to not only survive, but to flourish.

A parade of talented chefs have manned the kitchen over the years, including Paul Bertolli (who went on to found his fabulous Fra’Mani salumi company in Berkeley), and most recently, Paul Canales, who was at Oliveto for the past five years.

In December 2010, Jonah Rhodehamel took over as head chef, after previous stints as sous chef at three San Francisco establishments:  La Folie, Zinnia, and Americano.

He’s already started putting his stamp on the rustic, Italian fare here. He started a new dry-aging program to age rib-eyes for three weeks to concentrate their beefy flavor.

Recently, I had a chance to try his menu as a guest of the restaurant.

Enter the doors, and to your right will be the cozy, more casual cafe. If you go up the stairs, you’ll find the warm, inviting restaurant with its bank of windows that overlook lively College Avenue.

My husband and I started with a crudo of local halibut ($13), clean and bright tasting, with the slight bitterness of puntarella chicory and shaved purple artichokes.

The prettiest salad ever.

Rhodehamel also sent out a roasted root vegetable salad ($11.50) that was as gorgeous as a still-life painting. This seemingly simple dish was spectacular, with the carrots, beets and turnips roasted in salt to concentrate their flavor and sugars, and render them tender-crisp. Even an avowed vegetable hater would have a hard time not eating every last bite.

Oliveto has long been known for its house-made pastas, now made with local flours, so we just had to indulge.

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Healthful Pizza, Ruth Reichl Visit, Chef Demo & More

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The Mexican pizza at ZPizza in San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

Organic Wheat Flour Pizzas in San Francisco

Laguna Beach, Calif.-based ZPizza, which has more than 90 locations nationwide, now has a locale in San Francisco at 833 Mission St., Suite C (at Fourth Street).

The pizza dough is made from certified organic wheat flour, the sauces are prepared fresh daily, and the cheese is part-skim, rBGH-free mozzarella from grass-fed cows. Gluten-free crust and vegan cheese also are offered. Gourmet ingredients include cremini and shiitake mushrooms, as well as truffle oil and the African hot sauce known as pili pili. For delivery, the pizzas are ferried via bicycles to reduce carbon emissions. Gourmet salads, pastas and sandwiches round out the menu.

Pizza choices include the Thai, with peanut sauce, mozzarella, spicy chicken, cilantro, bean sprouts and serranos; the Mexican with housemade salsa, mozzarella, spicy lime chicken, green onions, avocado, sour cream and cilantro; and the Casablanca, with roasted garlic sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, mushrooms, artichoke hearts and parmesan. Pizzas are $10.95 for a small, $19.95 for a large, and $24.94 for an extra-large.

The one and only Ruth Reichl. (Photo by Fiona Aboud)

Ruth Reichl at Stanford University

Join former Gourmet magazine Editor-in-Chief Ruth Reichl at a free event at the Cubberley Auditorium on the Stanford University Campus in Palo Alto at 6 p.m. March 29.

Reichl, now an editor and author at Random House, will be speaking on “The Intersection of Food, Culture and History.”

A Different Look at Vanilla, Saffron and Chocolate

Sure, they taste good. But did you know all three of those ingredients are rife with politics?

Learn all about the intrigue in getting these three ingredients from harvest to plate at “Politics of the Plate — What’s Behind the Silky Sexiness of Vanilla, Saffron and Chocolate,” 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. March 16 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco (Starr King room), 1187 Franklin St. at Geary Street.

Experts Patricia Rain (vanilla), Juan San Mames (saffron) and Mark Magers (chocolate) will be on the panel with moderator Janet Fletcher, a San Francisco Chronicle food writer.

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A Fish Story in Napa

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Ahi tartare with lovely pine nuts.

This is not about the one that got away. It’s about the lunch that hooked me.

Fish Story, which opened late last year in downtown Napa along the Napa River, is all about sustainable seafood. The restaurant is part of the Lark Creek Restaurant Group, which has partnered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program. Seafood Watch pocket cards are available for the taking at the hostess stand. The menu is printed daily because it adheres to what’s fresh, available and eco-friendly.

Last month, I was invited to dine as a guest of the restaurant, which evokes the spirit of the ocean in its decor. There are fish tanks, and fish murals that are reminiscent of aquariums. Fish lures dangle from the ceiling. And a raw bar behind glass is on view with crab, oysters and clams all arrayed on ice. It sounds kitschy, but it’s actually appealingly modern with large windows overlooking the river.

Lightly battered and fried calamari.

We started with fried Monterey Bay calamari ($10.50), the rings and tentacles hot, crisp and just a little spicy. A nice touch were the slivers of pepper and thin lemon slices that also had been fried and heaped on top of the calamari. A creamy roasted tomato aioli came alongside for dipping pleasure.

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