Twists, turns on tonnato
Debate simmers about taking liberties with classic Italian dish
Vitello tonnato. Pronounce it, as an Italian would, trippingly off the tongue. Translate the traditional dish into English — veal with a tunaflavored mayonnaise — and that initial mellifluous charm fades fast.
“It’s such a delicate dish, but such specific, strong flavors,” said chef Ruth Rogers of London’s River Cafe. “Once you start describing it, it becomes more complicated than it is.” That’s why on her menu this antipasto from Italy’s Piedmont region comes with no description. It probably doesn’t need one; she’s been serving it, unchanged, since the restaurant opened in 1987.
Vinny Dotolo, a Los Angeles-based chef and restaurateur, considers vitello tonnato a forerunner of surf and turf. “You get that brininess, but tuna carries a bitter quality with it in a weird way,” he said. “And I think that’s a good thing.”
He presents the tonnato without the vitello, or any other meat. A recent visit found the sauce — made of anchovies, capers, lemon, egg yolk and olive oil — spooned over woodgrilled shishito peppers garnished with sesame seeds.
Dotolo is one of many chefs taking creative liberties with the dish and, more specifically, its fishenriched condiment. Like other sauces — bagna cauda, chimichurri or romesco, to name recent examples — it appears to be having its moment. Where before people applied the flavors of Caesar dressing to everything from kale to potato chips, now they tonnatize with abandon. It has been swooshed onto seared swordfish and raw tuna.
Lately, the thing to do is to pair it with vegetables, which is Dotolo’s preference.
He has seen it with regular bell peppers, green beans, beets and chicories. In his 2017 cookbook “Six Seasons,” chef Joshua McFadden of Portland, Ore., includes a slightly adjusted version of the sauce — he eschews the anchovies for a mellower, cleaner bite — in four recipes: with charred broccoli, sugar snap peas, radishes and string beans.
Rolando Beramendi, an importer of Italian specialty foods based in San Francisco, is less than thrilled with the “very strange things” being done to the iconic Italian dish. “They are using the word tonnato for anything that’s a mayonnaise with tuna in it . ... This is a prime example of a recipe that has lost its meaning,” he lamented over email. As the title of his new cookbook, “Autentico,” might indicate, he is an unabashed classicist.
So is Rogers, who avoids the modern riffing, too. “I congratulate the people who are doing it,” she said, slyly gracious with just the right amount of condescension. She orders it at Harry’s Bar in Venice, if at all.
Beramendi is similarly selective. “I don’t eat it unless I am at my friend the contessa’s house in Sardegna or in her home in the Principato di Lucedio, because nobody makes fresh mayonnaise from scratch anymore, and I know with her, she does,” he said.
Of course, if you want to follow tradition by pairing your tonnato with vitello, you certainly may. It’s a duo that will always taste as good when eaten as it sounds when spoken. But to try another way, start with this dish from cookbook author Anna Del Conte.
Charlotte Druckman is a freelance writer. Prep: