Late Summer in the Rosticceria
Look for:
Stay cool and come for a glass of rose and a light, righteous late summer meal. Or, order for takeout! We have a nifty online app that allows you to order – it’s 20% off your first online order through ChowNow.
The EBX Reviews Our Downstairs Rosticceria
Photo by Andria Lo for the East Bay Express
We were pleased when we read Luke Tsai’s review of our downstairs rosticceria in the East Bay Express that came out just last week. We felt it was a straightshooting, honest appraisal of our rosticceria‘s success and its challenges.
Everything he loved, we love too. According to him, we have “what might be the best, ooziest, and most satisfyingly meaty lasagne alla bolognese in town.” The Community Grains whole grain toast and Red Flint corn polenta, our Tuscan sausages and pork shoulder — all of these were complimented, and we hope this means more people will come in and try them! In the future, look for a revamped online ordering system for takeout, and of course, a roast Hoffman Farm chicken to knock your socks off.
Come on in for dinner and a summer cocktail! We’re looking forward to seeing you.
Have a look at the rosticceria menu.
A Meaningful Piece of Toast
Even with the rising interest in slowly fermented artisanal breads, it is yet still hard to find a skillfully made loaf of bread that’s made exclusively with organic, freshly milled whole grains. It’s one of the reasons why we’re immensely proud to introduce to you our new Toast Service in the cafe.
Much of it comes down to the wheat, which is supplied solely by our sister company Community Grains. It has an inner beauty that comes from the principles by which it’s grown and produced:
- The locally grown, organic wheat is grown by incredible farmers like Full Belly and Fritz Durst.
- It’s Identity-Preserved grain, meaning it’s traceable from seed to table (Community Grains shares information about each grain and how it was grown on its website).
- It’s whole milled, so all parts of the wheat kernel are contained in a richly aromatic, fresh flour – reflecting the true flavor of the wheat and brimming with all the nutrients that historically have made it a foundation of nourishment for many cultures.
With this wonderful 100% whole grain flour, our new baker and Pastry Chef Andrew Chaney makes slowly fermented loaves of bread, using natural yeast from our air, salt, and water. Long-fermented breads break down the large gluten molecules, so many people who have trouble with gluten can easily digest it.
Andrew’s making two kinds of loaves right now- a plain, naturally sweet loaf, and another with golden currants and pepitas. Crisp on the outside and dense and moist on the inside, it is every bit what Michael Pollan described in his book Cooked as the healthiest bread – one that’s naturally, slowly fermented and made with whole grains.
To go along with it, we’re offering a selection of toppings, all made in-house: freshly ground almond butter, small-batch seasonal jams, housemade ricotta dressed with lemon oil and black pepper, and right now, smoked locally-caught swordfish whipped light into cream cheese and chives. It’s hard to pick a favorite – each toast suits a different mood.
We hope you will come and try it – for our part, we’re grateful to be able to offer you something so simple, yet so exceptionally pleasurable to eat. Our toast menu is available everyday, 8am – 11am. Our weekend breakfast menu goes unchanged.
MENU
toasts:
Hard red winter wheat/hard white winter
wheat, with sweet butter 4.
Hard red winter wheat/hard white winter
wheat, pepitas, sesame seeds, and golden
raisins, with sweet butter 4.
**
home-made toppings:
ricotta spread: ricotta, honey, lemon oil, and black
pepper 3.
almond butter: toasted almonds ground
in house 2.50
marmalade: oranges, lemons, and sugar 1.25
egg salad 4.
ciccioli: house-made spreadable salame 3.
creamy smoked fish spread with cream cheese and
chives 4.50
organic strawberry jam 1.25
compound butter with maple syrup 1.50
Our loaves are made with Hard Red Winter Wheat and Hard White Winter Wheat.
New Dishes in the Rosticceria
Downstairs in the rosticceria, the kitchen’s been looking outwards from the vantage point of an Italian hearth, to Africa, Mexico, and the Middle East, and infusing their traditional flavors into our downstairs menu.
Above photographed is something we’ve been calling a chocolate Persian mole. The traditional Persian stew fessenjoon, with its combination of pomegranate and walnut, is so like Mexican mole, with its similar of fruit and nuts, we tried adding raw cacao to tasty effect! Neither too sweet nor too chocolate-y, this hearty sauce is absolutely wonderful on top of our spit-roasted Hoffman Farm chicken, and we’re planning on offering it fairly regularly.
Other items, new and wonderful, made with our own spice blends, include:
North African-style beef stew with cinnamon, Cayenne pepper, Ceci beans, and mint
Mannekish (flatbread) with olives, cucumber, and za’atar
Roast parsnips with ras al hanout and sultanas
Hope to see you for dinner soon!
An End of Winter Crostino in the Rosticceria
Savoring winter’s sweetness.
Downstairs, the rosticceria is making a crostino that takes advantage of the last butternut squash of the season – it’s unusually sweet and creamy. Candy-like Medjool dates and pools of melted, house-pulled mozzarella make it a satisfying yet delicate bite. A scattering of fried sage and a drizzle of aged balsamic reminds us that it still is winter, despite its current mildness.
We’ll be serving this tribute to cool weather for the next two weeks.
Our idea of a rosticceria is continuing to evolve. Ever-curious, we’re taking the original, Italianate idea of a rosticceria and exploring its boundaries. Italian food has always been influenced by its surrounds, and we’re finding ourselves desirous of expressing that in the menu. We’re hoping to share with you some of the changes in store soon. In the meantime, duck in for a glass of Vermentino and a restorative, after-work snack. We’d love to see you!
In the Downstairs Rosticceria: Lasagne alla Bolognese
This is not your mother’s lasagne – unless your mother uses thin, delicate sheets of handmade pasta, makes bolognese out of grass-fed Magruder beef, avoids the skim-milk mozzarella, and goes for a snowy drift of Parmesan. We do use a touch of béchamel here, but only to complement the rich, sweet notes of our sumptuously meaty bolognese sauce.
In short, this is a traditional lasagne alla bolognese, and if you’ve mainly been treated to American-style ones prepared with a heavy hand, ours is an eye-opener.
We’re glad to have a rosticceria downstairs that can put our expertise – and our pasta – to such good use.
We think our rosticceria menu is worthy of your home and have made it easy to order for takeout. You can order online or through our mobile app and receive a 20% discount on your first order.
To download our mobile app:
text “oliveto” to “33733”
Our rosticceria menu is available during evening service in the cafe.
Downstairs Rosticceria: House-made Sicilian Pork Sausage
We’re particularly pleased with our Sicilian pork sausage of late. Mildly spiced with fennel, coriander, and garlic, it’s full of the good, earthy flavor of well-raised Riverdog Farm pork. Here we’ve accompanied it with our whole-grain Red Flint corn polenta and Brussels sprouts, roasted until caramelized and crisp – though we have a number of sides to choose from. Our Calabrian pepper salsa adorns the whole and lingers on the tongue, tasting of last summer’s sweetness and fruity olive oil.
It’s rustic winter comfort food, exquisitely made.
Our downstairs evening rosticceria menu is available for takeout via our website. Or, you can download our smart phone app and order your dinner while out and about. When you order the first time online or through our mobile app, you get 20% off your order.
To download our app:
text “oliveto” to “33733”
Our rosticceria menu is available during evening service in the cafe.
Our New Rosticceria
Porchetta with tomatoes, olive oil-whipped potatoes, and salsa verde, 19.
We’ve converted our downstairs cafe into an Italian rosticceria in the evenings.
Our rosticceria is focused on fire-roasted or slowly braised meats and simple vegetable dishes from farmers we know, at affordable prices. The menu is designed for quick service, but diners can still sit down and linger – perhaps over a cocktail from our new cocktail list.
With the rosticceria, our neighbors can stroll in for a quick platter of roasted beef, chicken, lamb, or pork (depending on what’s available) with a choice of sides. We’ll also be offering a compelling vegetarian option, a fish stew, and a vegetarian and meat-based lasagne. Our pizza and polenta service will stay the same.
We think spit-roasting on our rotisserie is just the bee’s knees. It’s the simplest way to make extremely well-raised meat taste even better. The meat bastes in its own juices, and the fat from roasts arranged higher on the rotisserie drips onto roasts arranged lower, or onto dishes of vegetables cooking at the bottom. The food takes on the subtle smoky flavors of the fire, which, in our case, consists of charcoal and almond wood.
Brussels sprouts with pancetta, 14.
Most importantly, the rosticceria concept allows us to expand our whole animal program, which supports some of our favorite small farmers and ranchers, such as Magruder Ranch, Riverdog Farm, and Hoffman Farm. It will also make their fine, traditionally raised meat and poultry more affordable to our neighbors. A serving of meat plus two sides will cost a little under twenty dollars.
As we go through our animals, different cuts will become available, so our menu will slowly shift as the week progresses.
It’s going to be delicious!
Roasted peppers stuffed with brown Basmati rice, fresh Borlotti beans, almonds, and goat cheese, 11.
Cool off in the cafe with cold brew
Cold brew is new to Oliveto but it is certainly not new to coffee lovers. With some tutelage from our friends at Mr. Espresso we’ve perfected our in-house cold brew method to produce a refreshing and richly flavored beverage for these warm summer days.
Cold brew is essentially a coffee concentrate served over ice (so it can become diluted). Cold brew is created by a very simple yet effective brewing method where the coffee grounds are steeped in cold, filtered water for 24 hours. This type of extraction produces a smoother, cleaner, less bitter and less acidic beverage than your run-of-the-mill iced coffee. Brewing coffee with hot water actually destroys some of the more nuanced flavor compounds found in the bean’s oils, so cold brew offers a more complete and richer flavor. Although it’s a good deal more effort the results are definitely worth it.
Sara Bumpus, Oliveto’s coffee wrangler, gives us a play-by-play:
5 pounds of coffee (French press grind) to 28 cups water
Changes to the Oliveto Cafe Menu
Exciting things are happening in the Oliveto Cafe! Starting in early February, Sous Chef Vince Sanchez has taken charge of the downstairs dinner menu rotating in new items every 2-3 weeks. This month’s menu features new antipasti, two new entrees and two new killer pizzas:
