[from the Letters archive]
Birth of Incanto
Origins
I really don't know precisely when I decided I wanted to open a restaurant. My earliest recollection of having the idea is from 1972; I was five years old and we used to cook these huge meals with our neighbors, the Helds, that our two families would share. Living in Brooklyn during most of the year, the Helds would spend their summers in the house next door to ours in Old Lyme, Connecticut. We began a friendship between the two families that lasts to this day.
The Helds were my first conscious encounter with a mixed marriage couple. The Helds were not mixed racially, but along religious and (we all used to joke) culinary lines. Sydney Held is Jewish and his wife, Marie, was Italian-American and a devout Roman Catholic. My own parents, Michael and Ellen Pastore, combine Italian-, Irish-, and Polish-American heritage. So we had a wide range of food traditions to draw upon as we put together these meals. At the time, it seemed to me that Jewish food and Italian food were miles apart. I've since learned they share more in common than meets the tongue.
During these big summertime meals we ate Italian stuffed peppers, eggplant parmigiana, Polish kielbasa, fresh local seafood, great tomatoes, and corn on the cob and discussed what it would be like if our two families opened a restaurant together. What kind of food we would serve? Who would wash the dishes? Who would work in the kitchen? Who would work in the dining room? Although these conversations were in jest, this began my lifelong love affair with eating and restaurants.
Aside from my parents, both of whom cook well, another of my early culinary influences was Don Gliha, the head golf professional at the Black Hall Club in Old Lyme. In 1983, Don taught me to make a basic red sauce that I still make today. In college, I used to whip up big batches of this sauce and cook pasta dinners for all my friends. Sometimes these parties got to be bigger than my apartment. Once, I fed 115 people from my little stove, boiling up batches of pasta two pounds at a time for most of the night.
In 1988 I went to Italy for the first time. The three months I spent there opened my eyes and taste buds to unimagined worlds. If you've been there, you know what I mean. I was hooked. When I arrived in Italy, I had a basic idea of how to cook. After spending three months there, I understood better how to eat. There is an enormous difference between the two.
In the years after my first visit, in the midst of starting a business career, I returned to Italy at every opportunity. My Italian friends came here to visit and see California. When I went back to Italy, we went on vacation together to various regions I hadn't yet visited. When I wasn't in Italy, I was reading cookbooks, histories, and guidebooks, planning the next trip.
Eventually, this passion reached a boiling point. Something had to be done. In December 1999, the lid came off the pot. Incanto was inside.
Starting Out
You might think that in all these years of loving food and dining I would have tried working in a restaurant or had some affiliation with the food profession other than as a consumer. I haven't.
The closest I ever came was in March of 1990, when I attended career day at the California Culinary Academy. The visit and on-site cooking demonstrations were not impressive. I witnessed firsthand as the butchery instructor nearly severed a tendon in his hand while attempting to de-bone a chicken. His assistant had to finish the demonstration for him. I dropped the idea of going to cooking school and instead went back to working in Silicon Valley.
So, when eventually my passion got the better of me and I decided I had to give the restaurant idea serious attention, one of my biggest concerns was whether or not my fantasy would simply land me in trouble.
My first step was to spend 9 months talking with experienced restaurateurs about the lives they lead running restaurants. I was first struck by the generosity with which so many restaurant owners and workers shared their time. They spoke of the long hours, the hard work, and the challenges of dealing with perishable ingredients, satisfying a fickle public, and still needing to smile through it all. They also told me about the joy of working in a place where people come to celebrate life and of being actively involved in the daily lives of their communities. The decision was made. I took the leap.
Food | Wine | Why | Dante | Letters | Information | People
Incanto Italian Restaurant, 1550 Church Street, Noe Valley, San Francisco 94131
415-641-4500 - Email: info@incanto.biz