Why Il Pollaio is the mothership of chicken
This is Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer’s Between Meals column, an update of the restaurants he visits as he searches for the next Top 100 Restaurants. His main dining reviews, which include a ratings box, are written only after three or more visits.
*** Restaurants are increasingly building their menu around chicken. Local examples are RT Rotisserie in San Francisco, the Joinery in Sausalito and Limón, serving Peruvianstyle chicken at several locations around the city.
Often overlooked in this chicken onslaught is Il Pollaio in North Beach, a modest restaurant on Columbus Avenue that has been producing exceptional grilled chicken for decades.
The restaurant was opened in 1984 by Giuseppe Castellucci and is now run by his daughter Paula Castellucci Bautista. Castellucci was from Calabria, Italy; his family moved to Argentina when he was 11, and they came to California in 1980. Four years later, with no experience in the restaurant business, he opened the storefront in North Beach. With this background it makes sense that the food would take inspiration from both Italy and Argentina, yet it seems to have universal appeal.
Castellucci Bautista says she’s always surprised when people from the Middle East, France and Italy tell her the chicken brings back memories of their childhood.
“It’s got that taste of home like your grandmother used to make,” she says. “It speaks to many different cultures.”
The chicken ($11 for half; $18 whole) is coated in a dry rub with many spices, including oregano, basil, rosemary and garlic. It’s then grilled and served with wedges of lemon.
There are other items on the menu, but most people are there for chicken so there’s always a dozen or more spatchcocked birds on the grill in various stages of doneness. Once the chicken is ordered, it comes out quickly, with an herb-flecked bronzed exterior and a few charred patches from the grill.
The grilled rabbit ($25) has also found a following, and when we ordered it, the waiter let us know that it took a half hour, wrongly thinking we wouldn’t want to wait. We did.
The rabbit comes to the table nestled next to three thick slices of tomatoes garnished with fresh herbs, and a wedge of lemon cut from the pile of whole lemons that decorate the top of the counter in front of the open kitchen. It comes with either a salad or thick-cut fries.
Other items that come off the grill, such as the lamb chops ($19.50) and rib eye steak ($25), are accompanied by chimichurri. If you look on a shelf above the door, you’ll see vats of lentils and split peas that are used in the daily soups ($5.50 a cup or $7 a bowl, and both are $1.50 less if you order it with a meal).
The one thing you won’t see, which is a rarity in North Beach, is pasta.
The wine is serviceable, with only about 10 selections, but a bottle will cost you between $22 and $25. The interior is modest with tile floors and tables arranged in front of the storefront windows with the open kitchen in the rear.
While the restaurant’s concept may be simple, Castellucci Bautista says that the upkeep is not. Because of the grease from the grill — the restaurant serves up to 100 chickens a day — they repaint the interior every six months.
That’s the way it’s been since she can remember. She started working at Il Pollaio, which roughly translates to “chicken coop,” in high school, and her brother and husband also worked there.
Her father wanted her to escape the daily grind of running a restaurant, so she went to the University of San Francisco, where she earned a degree in political science. Her father said it would be over his dead body that she would come back to work in the restaurant, but the pull was too great. “To this day, the whole family knows not to bring it up,” she says.
Business has slowed recently, with several surrounding places going out of business. Just down the street, a fire in March took out another group of businesses.
Il Pollaio is fighting the downturn by doing what it has always done: putting out plates of good food with service that’s warm and familial. That seems to work — while we were there, a group of cops came in for dinner. They always seem to know the places that have generous portions.
Il Pollaio checks all that box and more. It’s one of the restaurants that is vital to preserving the soul of North Beach.
555 Columbus Ave., San Francisco; (415) 362-7727. Open 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday.