June 23, 1999

Where does the wife of the Italian consul to San Francisco take out-of-town guests to sample true Italian food in the Bay Area?
If you guessed a San Francisco restaurant, you'd be wrong. The correct answer is Oliveto restaurant in Oakland.
With chef/owner Paul Bertolli at the helm, he and chef Mike Tusk have transformed the 12-year-old Oliveto restaurant on College Avenue into a destination dining spot. Many of those seeking exceptional Italian food made from the purest and freshest ingredients maintain that you cannot get a better meal outside of Italy than at Oliveto. Last month, Bertolli won the prestigious James Beard Foundation Restaurant Award for best chef in California, beating San Francisco luminaries such as Traci Des Jardins of Jardiniere, Nancy Oakes of Boulevard and Judy Rodgers of Zuni Cafe.
"Paul stays focused in his simplicity and creates Italian food the way it's supposed to be," says Nancy Oakes, chef/owner of Boulevard. "People underestimate what it takes for a chef to stay that focused and not listen to a clientele."
Indeed, if you go to Oliveto expecting eggplant parmigiana or spaghetti and meatballs, you'll probably be disappointed, she says.
"This is true Italian food. I love to go there because it's like going to Italy," she said. "Often Italian chefs that come to America compromise themselves, but Paul has stayed focused on what he's wanted to do. It's a testament to his commitment and strength of character."
It was no surprise, she said, to her or others in the business that he won the James Beard Award.
Unlike many chefs, Bertolli uses no recipes at his restaurant. He doesn't believe in them, saying they're abstract. He mostly lets his senses dictate what he creates.
"Last night," he said, "I dug potatoes out of my garden, took a bay leaf from my tree and tossed it with the parsley and scallions I grow. It had a gorgeous perfume and tasted divine. The dish would have been different if I had gotten that potato from a store."
It's that attention to the vibrancy of vegetables that Bertolli seeks in buying from local farmers. He is so passionate about quality that he cures his own ham, makes his own sausages and processes his own balsamic vinegar.
"Once we get older," Paul explains, "it's hard to have an experience that is a surprise. Everything is formalized, pre-thought, pre-digested. I want my food to surprise people and remind them how good food can be."
In a demonstration of his self-effacing personality, Bertolli is quick to explain that the James Beard award isn't only about him but about all the people he relies on to make the restaurant work. Unlike many star chefs of the '90s who relish celebrity status, Bertolli is much more reserved. He emphasizes that he guides the restaurant while Tusk does the day-to-day work.
Bertolli knows firsthand from his years at Chez Panisse what it is like to labor behind the scenes as others gain accolades.
Together, Bertolli and Tusk work on menus, travel to Italy and discuss the restaurant's focus. Bertolli cooks three days a week, inspires new dishes and spends a great deal of time making connections with his suppliers.
He is also the creative spark behind Oliveto's special events such as the popular Best of Harvest series and dinners focusing on such things as tomatoes or balsamic vinegars.
His attention to detail and focus on ingredients were first apparent at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, where he worked as chef for the dining room from 1982 to 1992.
At Chez Panisse, then in its fledgling stages, Bertolli made a significant contribution, helping the restaurant evolve from serving French food to offering Italian dishes as well. He learned recognizing the purity of the products and making things from scratch are important.
But it wasn't until he started consulting in 1993 for Oliveto owners Bob and Maggie Klein that he felt he could make the food he loved: Italian. As a consultant, Bertolli put in a three-part plan to update the food, the service and the environment. He spent a month just poking around and eating the restaurant's food before making recommendations, tranforming it, as he says, from an adolescent to an adult.

Northern Italian accent
After taking a year off to study ancient history at the University of Toronto, he discovered that he missed cooking, and he returned to the Bay Area with the intention of running his own show. It all fell into place when the Kleins offered to make him a partner in Oliveto.
The restaurant specializes in seasonal food prepared in the northern Italian tradition. Appetizers include house-made salami and a selection of cured meats while pasta toppings tend to be Italian specialities such as veal ragu, braised duck and local porcini mushrooms.
Main courses may be spit-roasted leg of pork or hens stuffed with morel mushrooms and fava beans or tripe.
Last year, the Italian government honored Oliveto with an award in recognition of having the best authentic Italian food outside of Italy, one of only two such restaurants in the United States.
Bertolli, 45, came to appreciate cooking through his Italian grandparents and his own parents while growing up in San Rafael. Through the family he learned the secret of making prosciutto and curing ham.
As one of seven children, he remembers vividly the tastes, textures and flavors of the food he ate as a child. At age 13 he went to work as a journeyman butcher at Petrini's Market in San Francisco.
"It always felt natural to pursue cooking," he said.
Bertolli studied music at UC Berkeley and then honed his cooking skills with Chef Mark Miller at Fourth Street Grill in Berkeley after being rejected for a job at Chez Panisse.
Travels in Italy and cooking in four restaurants there prepared him to return to the Bay Area in the early '80s and a position at Chez Panisse.
"If I think about it, it is all those taste memories that makes me a good chef," he says. "I'll remember s specific taste, then I try and retrace that taste using chef techniques."

Often goes to Italy
In pursuit of the surprise, Bertolli and Tusk travel often to Italy, whether it's to hunt for truffles or try restaurants. "I spend a lot of time tasting classic Italian dishes and return and think, 'Well, what can I do to brighten up the dish?' It's similar to restoring a fresco. I won't use the exact ingredients from Italy which give the dish a particular quality, but I try to get a similar intensity of flavor."
"It's a rare restaurant," noted Carol Field, an author of several Italian cookbooks who lives in San Francisco. "Paul Bertolli's attention to detail and his dedication to the purity of his ingredients is phenomenal.
"He makes dishes that no one else does outside of Italy."
Since Bertolli had attended the Beard ceremonies in New York three times before for nominations while at Chez Panisse, he skipped the festivities this time around, figuring he'd get passed over again.
"The award was an honor to get," he said. "It finally validated this kind of food."
When he's not at the restaurant, Bertolli often heads up to a barn in Sonoma County where he is producing balsamic vinegar in the ancient Italian manner. A group of 22 families have invested in the 10-year plan that is believed to be the first-known American project of such kind.
"It's all a part of my passion," he confides. "I have always been passionate about food."
He reminisces on his childhood, about young Paul eating his grandmother's Italian food and sneaking into a nearby estate to purloin sunripe fruit and eat it on the spot, fruit dripping down his shirt.
This picture, more than anything, conjures up the harmony that he seeks to create in his cooking and that seems to transcend into each bite of his food.

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