Sora Margherita, a restaurant in the Jewish Ghetto in Rome that serves some delicious artichokes.
Locanda, the Roman-inspired restaurant from Craig and Anne Stoll (and company), opens this week. With the hope of getting at the core of a restaurant, we’re taking you — the reader, the diner — behind the scenes to explore the context of some of Locanda’s dishes.
And now, let’s welcome chef Anthony Strong, who is our tour guide in this mini series. Virgil to our Dante, if you will. Today, he’s tackling one of the most famous Roman dishes around, the dramatic (look at images online) fried delicacy of Carciofi alla Giudia.
Anthony, take it away:
I’m constantly reminded of how fortunate I am to be a cook in the Bay Area, which is like its own little region in Italy, bursting with great products to cook with. I’m especially fortunate to be opening a Roman restaurant in California due to the fact that artichokes are so amazing here, at numerous times throughout the year. These are artichokes that are grown on par with the best you can find in la campagna Romana. We’ll be running this dish as often as possible. Literally every day that we can, we will have this dish on the menu.
I was lucky to be in Rome during the start of fall season’s artichoke crop. My favorite version of Carciofi alla Giudia was in Sora Margherita in the Jewish Ghetto in Rome. A tiny little den type of a restaurant built into one of the most ancient buildings, the façade of the building was literally crumbling. The only indicator that it was even a restaurant was the line of people waiting outside the red curtained doorway (pictured). So romantic, I could ralph… So much so that when I was eating there I looked over and saw an American tourist reading “Eat.Pray.Love.” There we were, two Americans in Rome — with completely opposite agendas.
Anyways, this restaurant was a gem of an example of Roman Jewish cooking. Their artichokes are briefly boiled and then repeatedly plunged — blossom side down — into the hot extra virgin olive oil. This opens up the flower of the vegetable dramatically and crisps it. They emerge with crunchy leaves and a crispy shell encasing a creamy, meaty, juicy artichoke inside.
At the restaurant in Rome where I was staging, my biggest issue in making them was keeping artichoke from falling off the fork that was stuck in the stem of the plant as I would be submerging and retrieving them. Luckily, at another place I saw that they used unfolded wire hangers to hook the vegetable properly and kept it submerged flower side down in the oil. This is a method that I carried home and one we’ll be employing here at Locanda (just don’t tell our linen company).
The Carciofi alla Giudia is one of the most important dishes for us not to mess with too much. Just a bit of pepper, mint, that’s it. It wants absolutely no superfluous garnish, because in and of itself it’s perfect. When done well, the Carciofi alla Giudia is an enticing thing on a plate. It’s elegant, understated, multi-dimensional but has a great amount of straightforward simplicity. In other words: if it were a girl, I’d totally get with it.
· Previously: Locanda Diaries: Anthony Strong explains Locanda’s Amatriciana [Inside Scoop]
· Previously: Locanda Diaries: Anthony Strong on Trippa alla Romana [Inside Scoop]
Locanda: 557 Valencia St., between 16th and 17th; (415) 863-6800 or locandasf.com