Food Is Love
In the city where many people have claimed to have left their heart behind, I find myself, four days until Valentine’s, at Church and 30th in a restaurant called La Ciccia. Like Sardinia itself, the region of Italy from which the cuisine has come, this restaurant too is an island – an oasis – a nest – in between the train tracks and Victorian houses which make the city of San Francisco into a best selling postcard. What do you call a cozy Italian restaurant when the chef is the owner, the hostess is his wife, the bread is homemade and the olive oil comes 6,000 miles from the family farm? You call it by the feeling from which has been born, the values with which it conducts itself, and the sentiment with which it leaves you. You call it love.
Chef and owner Massimiliano Conti is master of his craft. La Ciccia is ten months strong and on Saturday at 7:30 the place packed. The name La Ciccia literally translates to “big belly” and from the scene and the smells inside the restaurant one can derive that to leave with anything less would be a travesty. The place is full of smiling SF locals – a scene even more refreshing than the mint green of the walls and the freshly cut flowers. I approach the wine list like a treasure box. There are close to ten times more wine choices than there are entrée selections and I take this as a sign of a truly great Italian restaurant. Upon suggestion I opt for a 2003 Carignano del Sulcis “Reserva Kanai”: the sardinia Wine Reserva. Other selections to recommend are the 2005 Nuragas di Cagliari “S’elegas” Argiolas and the special 2001 Cannonau Malvasia Nera “Turriga” Agriolas – two wines which have me vow to come back at least twice.
Massimilliano Conti is very busy and yet he is not insisting I order off the menu. For my first course I have fresh Ricotta with Pane Carasau, a bread indigenous to Sardinia. The bread is what you would expect from a high level of culinary art – homemade and simply delicious. To top it off, the olive oil with which it is served could stand alone as a gift of richness and delight. The Conti family has been making this oil for over two hundred years. It is purely organic and harvested every other year. The flavors locate me. I am in Sardinia, kissing the soil, touching down to the richness of the earth where all life and love has come from. like the message in Louella Conti’s large brown eyes – “Appreciate life, eat good, be healthy.” There are no worries here. The food is simple and un-manipulated – an unadulterated and potent gift beautified by family secrets.
For a second course I am given a Sheppard’s dish – pasta with wild mushrooms. The Sheppards of Italy are out in the field for hours every day and there is no time to make pasta. Instead the Sheppard’s put Sardinian bread in water, adding wild mushrooms and a little bit of cheese. It is a hardy meal – the kind that makes you want to climb a mountain the next day. I appreciate it as does a man who has worked since sunrise and with the last bite I find that the dish has solidified my plans to climb Mt. Tamalpais by the following noon. I look towards the door. It is masked in curtains and every new person who comes in entertains me with an entrance like that in a performance. People are pleased and delighted to be here and I find myself, in between the pleasure of the Sheppard and the patron, unconsciously holding my breath.
For desert I have a cheese plate. The chef has chosen a selection of Sardinian cheeses and has paired them with saffron infused honey – the result of which is a final course worth of royalty. Desert is served like a crown on your head and is the culmination of not just a meal, but of the total experience. It is the final gift from a man who has chosen to be un-pretentiously benevolent with his knowledge of Sardinian cuisine and from his wife - with whom lies all the vigor and grace of a queen. This area of San Francisco used to be home to many Italian and Greek families. As Massimilliano says “We are bringing back the love and it takes time.”
La Ciccia is all about dedication – the neighborhood, to the food and to the earth. It is like a good romance – simple and true – a place to seek refuge from our own tendencies to over complicate the world around us. It is where we go to let down the shield and experience our own essence – a safe place where the even the rain becomes an inevitable element for which we hold no grudge. La Ciccia dances and it is not the fox trot. It is a potent dance – one that leaves the guests lingering long after the meal is done. One that is appreciated from the very place from which it came – the heart. Yes, it’s true – food is love and La Ciccia proves it.
