Seeds of a new dish

Delfina’s Anthony Strong returns from Italy with squash and poppy seed gnocchi

Ten years ago, Anthony Strong spent his last 60 bucks on dinner at Delfina. He still remembers what he ate.

“I had a plate of fresh anchovies,” he recalls. “I’d just finished working at Le Bernadin (Eric Ripert’s celebrated New York seafood restaurant), and I was used to seeing fish that were high on the food chain. But a plate of cured anchovies was new to me.”

Along with the anchovies, he ate ribollita; Delfina’s iconic spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce; chicken-prosciutto agnolotti; and sand dabs.

The meal changed his life

Strong, a Midwesterner, left New York and moved to San Francisco to cook. He spent days trailing in the kitchens of Gary Danko, Fifth Floor and Aqua, but it wasn’t until that meal at Delfina that he found the restaurant where he wanted to work.

A decade later, he’s still there. Strong and Delfina chef-owner Craig Stoll just returned from an eating tour of Emilia-Romagna, and, a few years back, Strong spent several months living and cooking in Rome, field research that preceded the opening of Locanda.

“Emilia-Romagna was amazing — two lunches a day, two dinners,” says Strong. One of his most memorable meals was at Locanda del Falco, housed in a castle in Gazzola, where Strong ate delicate squash gnocchi luxuriating in butter, topped with crumbled amaretti cookies and poppy seeds.

“I’ve had versions of this pasta before, but never with poppy seeds,” he says. “That makes all the difference.”

In the tight quarters of his Cole Valley kitchen, Strong replicated the dish, saucing the orange pillows with a rich chestnut butter, then finishing the plate, Falco style, with amaretti and poppy seeds.

The gnocchi are made with squash puree instead of potato and actually need to be frozen before cooking. The sauce can be made ahead, too. Make a batch of the pasta and sauce on the weekend and your future self will be pleased. An Italian-style dinner will be just a pot of boiling water away.

Delfina: 3621 18th St. (near Guerrero Street), San Francisco; (415) 552-4055. www.delfinasf.com.

Locanda: 557 Valencia St. (near 17th Street), San Francisco; (415) 863-6800. www.locandasf.com.