San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The cheesy ‘show’ diners can’t get enough of
Bay Area Italian restaurants are tossing pasta in giant 90-pound wheels of cheese
It’s hard to miss Berkeley’s flashy Three One Four restaurant on Gilman Street. And one pasta dish very much at home among the self-described “swanky” white booths and pink walls of the restaurant, which opened in late March, is being made in a very eye-catching way under the glam dining room’s chandeliers.
Hot pasta is dropped into a large, partially hollowed-out wheel of cheese imported from Italy. Inside, the pasta melts the cheese into a glossy sauce. Then the cook tosses and tosses the glistening pasta before twisting it onto a plate. The process happens on a cart carrying the cheese around the dining room, bringing the show straight to the table.
Restaurant owner Brandon Wilson hopes diners will have the same impression he had after trying the dish for the first time. “It just blew me away,” he said.
Bowls of cacio e pepe — once a tongue twister for American diners — have become a hugely popular dish at Italian restaurants nationwide. And tossing a deluxe version of the simple cheese-andpepper pasta dish in huge wheels of Italian cheese is gaining popularity at Bay Area restaurants. The item was already somewhat trendy before the pandemic, and the appeal — diners typically watch the process with phones in hand, documenting for social media posterity — is undeniable.
“It’s good advertising for us,” said Maico Campilungo, co-owner of the Michelin-listed restaurant Italico in Palo Alto. It’s only available Wednesday and Sunday, for $25, and is one of the most popular items on the menu.
Dolly Batathota opened her eponymous wine bar Dolly’s in El Cerrito last October. Inside the petite space, she pours a selection of wines and tosses fettuccine into a 97-pound wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano, what she says is the only cheese wheel in Contra Costa County. The item ($23.95) has been a hit. In San Francisco, Acquolina
in North Beach and Bella Trattoria in the Inner Richmond also offer the dish, as do South Bay restaurants like Locanda Sorrento, and at Eataly, Silicon Valley’s expansive palazzo of Italian eating.
The origins of the trend in the U.S. are unclear, but the dish has been around for some time on menus in Southern California and the Bay Area. (Bella Trattoria chef-owner David Burciaga says he’s offered the item on and off over the last seven years.) In Italy, chef Massimo Bottura — a cheese obsessive best known for his three-Michelin-star restaurant Osteria Francescana — cooked a risotto inspired by cacio e pepe inside of a cheese wheel after a 2012 earthquake damaged several prized wheels of cheese in his native Modena. He also tossed pesto pasta inside a cheese wheel at a food media event in New York in 2014, bringing more American eyes to the method.
Batathota, the Dolly’s owner, first saw the preparation while traveling through Florence, Italy, a few years ago and wanted to
replicate it. Campilongo, the Italico owner, also encountered the dish in Italy and decided to introduce it to his restaurant around four years ago.
Three One Four chef Mario Vollera offered cheese wheel pasta at his previous restaurant South End in Los Angeles. He has also seen people toss pasta in cheese wheels in his native Rome and its surrounding Lazio region.
The dish, which is generally a version of cacio e pepe, is made by shaving a layer of Pecorino Romano, then dropping in a serving of pasta and a bit of boiling water to melt it. The noodles then get a sprinkling of fresh ground pepper. There are many variations. Dolly’s drops fettuccine into a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano for Alfredo instead, and offers toppings of smoked salmon or prosciutto ($29.95). Half Moon Bay’s Fattoria e Mare also uses Parmigiano Reggiano aged 36 months ($30). At Italico, it’s bucatini that goes into an 84-pound wheel of Grana Padano.
Three One Four chef Vollera says he’s gotten requests to do the
dish with other pasta shapes like macaroni or mezze maniche, a wide tube-shaped pasta. But as a purist, he insists the true cacio e pepe can only be made with Pecorino Romano, spaghetti and ground pepper. “That’s the original recipe,” Vollera said.
Some cheese suppliers offer whole cheese wheels, which is how Three One Four acquire them. Dolly’s owner Batathota, however, imports her wheels herself. It’s a long process that requires lots of paperwork, she said. It’s also expensive: She declined to name an exact figure, but put it in the thousands of dollars.
Because the item is in regular demand, cheese wheels must be replaced regularly. Batathota is in the process of importing another wheel of cheese to serve the dish without interruption. Bella Trattoria’s chef Burciaga orders 72pound wheels twice a month from Italian importer Lettieri & Co. to keep the dish available. “People love the show,” he said. At Fattoria e Mare, one wheel of Pecorino can last around six weeks during the summer season.
The twice-a-week availability at Italico extends the cheese wheel’s lifetime to around four months. Campilongo estimates each wheel can yield around 400 dishes, with about 40 grams shaved off to cover the pasta in creamy sauce.
Caring for the cheese is a major part of offering the item on a regular basis. At Three One Four and Italico, staff manually remove the last layer that came into contact with food, then cover the wheel in a film before putting it back into refrigeration. At the end of every night at Dolly’s, owner Batathota says the cheese is sanitized with high proof liquor that is set on fire, then the top layer is removed before the entire wheel goes into the walk-in refrigerator. Over time, and as diners order the item, the cheese wheel gets lighter, and the process becomes easier for her. “I wasn’t always able to lift the wheel,” she said with a laugh.
Three One Four chef Vollera says that inside a restaurant setting, the preparation is indeed extravagant, but that cacio e pepe is, ultimately, meant to be a humble dish. “It’s hard to do more with those few ingredients,” Vollera said.
Three One Four. 1329 Gilman St., Berkeley. threeonefourpizzeria.com
Dolly’s. 10172 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. dollystavern.com
Italico. 341 California Ave., Palo Alto. italicorestaurant.com
Acquolina. 1600 Stockton St., San Francisco. acquolina.us
Fattoria e Mare. 315 Main St., Half Moon Bay. fattoriaemare.com
Bella Trattoria. 3854 Geary Blvd., San Francisco. osteriabella.com
Locanda Sorrento. 76 East Campbell Ave., Campbell. locandarestaurants.com/campbell
Eataly. 2855 Stevens Creek Blvd., San Jose. eataly.com/us_en/stores/ silicon-valley