Pelagia Trattoria was the first restaurant I reviewed when I began working for Creative Loafing Tampa. I loved the food, especially a grilled Caesar salad I still crave, but I muted my praise because I didn't know the Bay area dining scene well enough to discern where Pelagia fit.
What a mistake. Those meals — cooked by chef Fabrizio Schenardi — still rank as some of the best I've had in the area. I don't get back there nearly enough.
That put Schenardi at the top of my list when I started picking chefs for CL's $20 Menu Challenge. The man has a history of fine-dining experience, mainly in high-end resorts around the world (including the Beverly Wilshire and the Four Seasons Maui), but at his core is the soul of an Italian. His cuisine is modern Mediterranean, full of fresh flavors and simple combinations that deliver more than the sum of the ingredients. I knew that for him, this challenge would be a snap.
Pelagia Trattoria is a hotel restaurant, part of the Renaissance at International Plaza. Instead of conforming the restaurant to the needs of the hotel — the common path taken, especially at smaller spots like this Renaissance — the hotel has skewed the entire food and beverage operation to Schenardi's style of cuisine. Hold an event in one of the banquet rooms, or order room service, and you'll be getting basically the same food you'd find in the acclaimed restaurant. That's turned the place into a destination for local businesses and organizations.
That also means that the kitchen is perpetually hopping during a time when most hotels are suffering from the economic downturn. "We have less square footage, which is a bonus now," explains Schenardi on the way to the local Sweetbay for ingredients. "In the past, companies invited everyone. Now, events are smaller, and only the top guys get to come to events." He confides that his cuisine is especially popular with Scientologists. "They call up all the time."
Cruising the aisles behind a cart, he explains that he doesn't get to the supermarket very often. His wife is Korean — they met in Switzerland at culinary school — and an accomplished cook in her own right, so she makes most of the meals at home, a lot of it with an Asian influence. He hits Oceanic Market occasionally, as well as a few farm stands near his house, but he's a busy man.
Like most of the chefs I've done this exercise with, Schenardi starts in the produce aisle. Meat and staples come second to finding the freshest, in-season ingredients. He mulls over the mushrooms, trying to find a bargain, then grabs a few plum tomatoes — "they are the best option in a supermarket," he explains, since they're sturdier and often more ripe than other types. He then grabs mango, kiwi, onion and lemon in quick succession; it's starting to look like he has a plan.
At the seafood counter, Schenardi chooses a small portion of standard farm-raised salmon and a meager six shrimp. Then he starts chipping away at the rules. "If I need something from the restaurant, that's OK, right?" he asks, with a half-smile. Sure, but we've got to include it in the budget. Just to be on the safe side, he keeps the supermarket bill to a mere 12 bucks. When we get back to Pelagia, he'll use that extra $8 to stretch the rules of the challenge almost past the breaking point.
We set up in the catering kitchen, a few dozen feet from Pelagia's main cooking area. There are no less than a dozen people in sight, grilling chicken breasts, tending vast bins of steaming lobster stock, prepping veggies and cutting strawberries into intricate designs.
Schenardi jokes about modern American cuisine while tossing mushrooms and checking slowly frying slabs of polenta. "They seem to need so many ingredients to make flavor," he says, his face lighting up with trademark grins. "All you need are a few things, then the flavor comes."
I consider arguing with him as he proceeds to grab a bounty of extra ingredients from the Pelagia stocks: a half cup of veal demi-glace, that polenta, a few leaves of basil, stalks of parsley, a couple strawberries and more. Sure, the individual portions might not cost enough to blow the $20 budget, but how many people have all that on hand all the time?
Then I taste the first dish. Like he said, it's simple. Just instant polenta, cooled into slabs and fried in oil, topped by sautéed mushrooms laced with garlic, lemon, salt and pepper, and that demi-glace. I can taste a hint of toasty corn, the earthiness of the mushrooms, the nutty garlic. I decide to hold my tongue and save it for tasting.
Fresh pasta is next, a dish that befuddles home cooks but is one of the simplest things you can make. Flour. Eggs. Mix. Knead. Roll into sheets — with a fancy, $2,500 roller like the one Schenardi uses, or with an old-fashioned rolling pin. Again, simple.
Especially in this recipe. Schenardi cuts the sheets of pasta into big squares, boils them and slaps one onto each plate. On top go the shrimp, sautéed with garlic and the tomatoes. "Open-faced ravioli," he proclaims with another smile, while draping another sheet of pasta on top. Simple and delicious. This one will enter the Ries family repertoire. Maybe tonight.
Schenardi sears the salmon and places it atop green beans, "not haricots vert, but you get the same feel." The dish tastes like salmon and beans, but better — certainly better than what I make at home. He whips up a quick crepe batter and tops the thin pancakes with fruit softened by a quick sauté.
At the end, as he cruises the kitchen to find people who want to eat his portion of our meal — my plates are empty — Schenardi's face exudes surprise and satisfaction. He's also a tad smug. So am I.
He accomplished a complex meal, filled with simple, fresh flavors, using techniques that most home cooks already have in their skill set. And I got to eat another great meal at Pelagia.
Pelagia Trattoria, 4200 Jim Walter Blvd., International Plaza, Tampa, 813-313-3235, pelagiatrattoria.com.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2008.