August 29, 2011
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Calabrese & Modenese
Tony Lemmo’s mama is a Lacona and his dad owned Lemmo’s so his fate was sealed. His Italian bistro in Sherman Hill consistently wins “most romantic” laurels with its charming Victorian ambiance. Lemmo keeps the town’s only all Italian wine cellar, carefully researched on trips to Italy. Café di Scala is one of just three places in town that make all pasta fresh from scratch. Chef Phil Shires uses garden fresh produce to help give his kitchen the most contemporary take on Calabrese cuisine.Des Moines’ Traditional Italian Restaurants
Most Italians came to Central Iowa from just two regions of Italy. The majority who settled on the Southside of Des Moines immigrated from the extreme south, Calabria and Sicily. That part of Italy is far from the dairy line, but rich in olive trees. As a result, the traditional cuisine, developed before refrigeration was widespread, was based on olive oil, seafood and tomato sauce. By the mid 1950’s, Johnny and Kay’s, Vic’s Tally Ho, The Latin King and Babe’s dominated fine dining in Des Moines. All were owned by sons of Calabria.
Most Italians who originally settled northwest of Des Moines came to work the coal mines and hailed from Modena in Emilia-Romagna, the fat part of Italy where the legendary cuisine was based on dairy products and elaborate pork products. When the coal mines closed, these families moved into Des Moines. One North Italian restaurant from Madrid, Anjo’s, moved to Windsor Heights, preserving its unique style until the 1990’s.
Today some Des Moines’ Italian-American restaurants represent a syntheses of the two regions cuisines, often as they were filtered through New York City’s Little Italy. Here is a genealogy of Des Moines’ best traditional Italian restaurants.
Gino’s 2809 6th
Gino Foggia calls his 15 years at Johnny and Kay’s, “my college education.” He opened his own place in 1966, in the old Chick-a-Dee cafe, a continuously operated restaurant since 1928. A lot has changed, the last grain elevator in Des Moines was torn down behind Gino‘s, and Riverview Park closed across the street. Most important things have not changed. Gino still buys prime beef for steaks, still makes all the pasta from scratch, including his famous cavatelli and gnocchi. He still pan fries chicken and he still makes the traditional hot anchovy sauce from Scalea, his father’s home town on the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Tumea & Sons, 1501 SE 1st
Joe Tumea is Sicilian-born and his late wife Lucretia Berardi was Calabrese. His menu is a synthesis of two families’ recipes. The “Sicilian spaghetti” is a baked specialty and the “brashiole,” a meat roll, is also Sicilian. The garlic butter, marsala reductions and picatas that enrich other specialties are family heirlooms that have adapted over the years. This is one of the few places left in Des Moines that still serves Calabrese “pastachena,” cannoli and guandi.
Noah’s Ark, 2400 Ingersoll
Calabria-born Noah Lacona opened a restaurant on Court Avenue in 1946 and, one year later, opened another at the present site on Ingersoll. After designing a gas oven that simulated wood-burning ovens and a pie making machine that duplicated a Neapolitan style crusts, he served what was probably the first pizza in Iowa, in 1947. All Noah’s recipes came from his mother, Teresa, and none have changed in over 55 years, though the menu has added many new dishes as it grew through four additions and remodelings.
Lasagna here is Calabrese style, made with rigatoni, not flat pastas. Fettucini, cavatelli, ravioli and gnocchi are made from scratch daily. So are the Italian sausage, meatballs and fresh breads, and famous dinner rolls. The spumoni with rum sauce is, perhaps, Des Moines’ most famous dessert.
Café di Scala
644 18th Street, 244-1353
www.cafediscala.comBaratta’s, 2320 S Union
Calabria-born Charlie “Cat’ Baratta and his brother Mike operated an Italian grocery store on the southside through the 1940’s and 50’s. In 1967 they converted it into a restaurant. Joe Gatto, whose father came here from Calabria as an exchange student, landed his first job working for Cat when he was 14. In 1993, along with southside friends Lisa and Curt Krueger, he bought the place.
The building and the menu have been remodeled, but Mike’s pepper steak and Cat’s spaghetti are original dishes. Amaggio ( olive oil, wine, garlic, basil, lemon juice) is an old Des Moines-Calabrian favorite and the ravioli are made from scratch in the house. Early bird specials are amongst the most popular in town.
Chuck’s 3610 6th
Linda Bisignano began working in her father’s restaurant when she was 12.
Chuck Bisignano was the American born son of Calabrians and the brother of Des Moines’ most famous Italian restaurateur, Babe Bisignano. Chuck’s has been a Highland Park institution since 1956, serving homemade dishes the old fashioned way.
“We still do almost everything the same way we always have. We aren’t a trendy place. We even have the same pizza oven we started with,” said Linda, who does just about every job there is to do in a restaurant. She and her brother make breads, salad dressings (with whole cloves of garlic marinated at least 2 months), Italian sausage, cavatelli and three kinds of ravioli from scratch. Dishes like maruzze (3 cheeses in a pasta shell), chicken diavalo (marinated in hot dried pepper oil) and spinach lasagna have long southern histories, and hundreds of loyal fans.
Tursi’s Latin King, 2200 Hubbell
Jimmy Pigneri came to Des Moines from Calabria, but first spent some time in New York City’s Latin Quarter, when that meant Italian, not Spanish speaking, immigrants. He worked in restaurants there and brought the Little Italy influences to Des Moines where he and wife Rose opened the Latin King in 1947.
In 1983 the Pigneris sold to Bob Tursi, the American-born son of Calabrese parents. While twice remodeling the original building, Bob and wife Amy kept faith with the southern Italian and Little Italy flavors. They avoid short cuts. For instance, American fried potatoes are still made like they were in the 1940’s, with sliced fresh potatoes in a covered pan. They are the best in town and some people come here just because of this side dish. Similarly, the tomato sauces are made with a heavily concentrated, home made pastes that evoke another time. Ravioli, manicotti and the legendary potato gnocchi are made fresh in the kitchen.
Chicken spiedini is a signature dish, marinated breast chunks are breaded and broiled and served with a choice of home made sauces. In Calabrese fashion, there are four different preparations here for chicken livers or gizzards. The steak de burgo recipe is from Johnny & Kay’s, which half of Des Moines believes to be the original. Desserts presented excellent choices from both the home made and the Fed Ex schools of thought. The excellent tiramisu and cannoli were prepared in the kitchen. Gelato dishes, such as Tartuffo, came from Chicago and sorbets and cheesecakes from Milan.
Christopher’s 2816 Beaver, and Mezzodi, 4519 Fleur
Christopher’s owner Joe Giudecessi’s dad, Jim, came here from D’alla Vecchio in Calabria. Christopher developed into an Italian restaurant and after a couple years, the family sauce recipe appeared in spaghetti dishes. Lasagna is straight Calabrese. The Giudecessi chicken Parmesano, has always been made in (northern) Italian, rather than Italian American style, with white sauce rather than red.
One reason Giudecessi’s sons Ron and B.J. opened Mezzodi was to expand on Christopher’s menu, offering more southern specialties, like bruschetta, which uses balsamic reduction, tomatoes and arugula and a two way calamari, as well as dishes associated more with north Italy, like lobster risotto and mushroom ravioli in gorgonzola cream.
Sam & Gabe’s, 7700 University, Clive
Owners Jerry and Julia Talerico are second generation Des Moines restaurateurs. Their father Vic Talerico, who owned the legendary Vic’s Tally Ho on Douglas, came from Calabria, but his wife Sophia was Modenese. The menu at Sam & Gabe’s includes family recipes from both sides of the tree. The steak de burgo, which half of Des Moines believes was invented by Vic, is made southern style, with olive oil, garlic and herbs. The chicken Sophia, is pure Emilian, chicken thighs, sun dried tomatoes, basil and mushrooms served on penne in a sauce made with chicken stock, butter and cream. Most pastas at S&G’s offer a choice of that cream sauce or marinara.
Basil Properi’s two locations
Steve Logsden’s cafes are named after his Italian-born grandfather, who was murdered in Des Moines, probably for dating the wrong woman. Basil Prosperi came from Lucca, in Tuscany and Steve uses a family recipe on weekend specials when he can find the ingredients. This pasta from Lucca is made with roasted chickens, a porcini ragu plus all spice, cinnamon and cloves. Logsden says his Tuscan bread is distinguished by the absence of salt, something important in a region where meats are so salty.
Centro,10th and Locust
George Formaro’s parents came from the south of Italy, mother Gina from Palermo and his father George from Calabria. George learned to make breads in Sicily and northern Italy, but his pizzas, like most of the menu at Centro, are inspired more by Little Italy in New York than by Italian influences.
“I think that New York Italian is a true cuisine of its own. For instance, I have never seen a meatball in all the time I have spent in Italy, but I love meatballs and wouldn’t think of not having them on the menu…Our pizzas are somewhat Neapolitan, but they are more New York City, particularly in the choice of fresh mozarella that is dryer than what would be found in Italy… The most Italian thing on the menu, and the purest family recipe, is our roasted garlic vinaigrette salad dressing, that is mom’s heirloom.”Set in the historic Temple for the Performing Arts, it is itself a work of art and is rivaled only by 801 Steak & Chop House for the celebrity of its guest registry. A Democrat Party favorite during caucus season, Centro is a place to see and be seen. Built around 800 degree coal burning pizza ovens, the menu pays dual homage to Italian traditions of both New York City and Des Moines. The weekend brunch’s offer sinful breakfast temptations.
Lucca
420 E. Locust Street, 243-1115
www.luccarestaurant.netA masterpiece of eye catching Minimalism by architect Kirk Blunck, Lucca drops white stained ash and Plexiglas designs within an unadorned brick shell from 1880. Bathroom boxes look like Donald Judd sculptures and a black piano is parked in the dining room, not in the bar. Owner Steve Logsdon, named a top 20 Midwest chef by the James Beard Awards, keeps his menus appropriately simple, offering artful three course meals at prices that would be stunning bargains in Chicago or San Francisco. His heritage is Tuscan – his grandfather Basil Prosperi was murdered for dating a Calebrese girl in Des Moines.Riccelli’s, 3803 Indianola Rd.
A grandson of Calabria, Pete Riccelli opened Tally’s in 1958 after learning the business at Caesar’s on Fleur and Luigi’s on Forest. Later he owned three Ricelli’s, plus the Mainliner night club, but has settled into the single operation now. Ravioli and cavatelli are home made here as are all the Calabrian sauces for popular dishes like lasagna and cacciatore.
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