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Sip and Savor: Paso chefs get creative with fall-driven menu 

Il Cortile’s poached egg over polenta with shaved black truffles
Photos by Mira Honeycutt

-There’s something about the fall season that gets a chef’s creative juices flowing. For Paso chefs the source of inspiration is the availability of local bounty and their relationships with farmers and purveyors. Plus the big bold red wines of Paso marry well with winter stews and squashes.

So I approached five downtown chefs from old guard names like Andre Averseng to newcomers such as Kurt Metzger, Kyle Baca, Santos MacDonal and Tom Santos to check out what’s new on their fall/winter menu.
Chef Kyle Baca of Artisan restaurant

Not only is there a new fall menu but an updated wine list focused on Central Coast wines. “I’ve got my fall allocations and hard to find wines,” announces Artisan’s proprietor Garrett Glava. He then enthusiastically drops names such as Saxum, Denner. and L’Aventure along with small new labels like Jeremy Weintraub’s Site and Anthony Yount’s Kinero.

“It’s a big change and we are doing dynamic things with wine,” asserts the new owner who took over Artisan with his wife Jennifer in 2016. I must add there are dynamic things being done to food also. While some of favorite dishes such as the signature pizzas and appetizers remain on the menu, fall additions are hearty and delicious.

Artisan’s Delicata Squash

“My style is big on fall foods,” comments chef Kyle Baca, who took the reins from chef Chris Kobayashi. The menu reflects the chef’s passion, such as the melt-in-your-mouth wild boar tenderloin cooked to perfection served with silverbell squash, apples and spice jus, and breast of Beewench farm chicken tender and succulent atop polenta, spinach and cherry agro dulce. Other dishes include the SLO smoked pork with sweet potato mash and braised greens and the hangar steak accompanied with heirloom tomatoes.

Garrett shared some of his new wine finds — 2013 vintages of Niner’s malbec, a Bordeaux-style blend from Preston Parker and a smooth and velvety Site grenache that we were told is on the French Laundry wine list.

Baca’s take on a vegetarian dish is a deliciously healthy delicata squash filled with quinoa, goat cheese, pine nuts and pomegranate seeds, which pairs nicely with Shell Creek Vineyards petite sirah.

Baca is excited about helming a kitchen, which he marvels is “arguably the largest kitchen in the county” for a small restaurant that seats 120 people.
His mantra is that food should taste and look good.

Il Cortile’s Fettuccine Sasiccia

“It should impress from a distance, then it comes to the table and you want to jump on it,” remarks the chef who says that he’s been cooking since he was a kid. Baca then studied at Cordon Bleu in the Bay Area and earned valuable experience by working at several Michelin star restaurants in the city.

Here in Paso, small local farmers inspire the chef. Produce is sourced from Templeton’s Robin Song Farms and beef and pork from Charter Oak and Stepladder Ranch. Not only is food locally sourced, the restaurant’s decor is also locally focused. Garrett points at tables crafted from a fell tree, windows gathered from a garage sale and flooring built of local cork.

The dining experience ends with a heavenly taste of pumpkin cheesecake, perfect finish to a fall menu.

Chef Santos MacDonal of Il Cortile ristorante

Chef Santos MacDonal’s culinary career began at Malibu’s fashionable Giorgio restaurant and from there he went on to other tony Italian eateries of Los Angeles before bringing his Italian passion to Paso when he and his wife Carole opened the authentic Italian Il Cortile ristorante.

The chef’s mornings are often spent scouting local markets —Saturday it’s Templeton, Tuesday Paso and Monday Los Osos.

Artisan’s Beewench farm chicken and wild boar tenderloin

“There are different vendors in these markets,” MacDonal explained. He’s excited about sweet pea tendrils and passion fruit as well as the winter squashes especially the rich kabocha he uses in his gnocchi with brown butter sage sauce. As for meats, he’s not much into grass-fed beef.

“We like the fatty beef that has more marbling; it’s more flavorful,” explained Carole. The meats are sourced from Irvine-based Newport Meat Co. while fish comes from Monterey.

While Santos is manning the kitchen staff, Carole is in the front of the house ensuring the comfort of diners with a perfectionist eye.
She suggests an antipasti of poached egg over white polenta and parmesan fonduta topped with a good dose of shaved black truffles. Offering layers of creamy comfort, the luscious starter is one heart-warming dish for wintry nights. This indulgent goodness is best washed down with a glass of silky Bele Casel Asolo Prosecco.

MacDonal’s pastas and sauces are freshly made in the kitchen and the combination of two is so harmonious that the sauce is not just an accompaniment but also rather a delicious dancing partner with the pasta. The primi pasta menu maintains such perennial favorites as pappardelle with wild boar ragu and ravioli with shrimp and lobster.

MacDonal’s new fall addition is the sumptuous fettuccine salsiccia, a spinach pasta tossed with delicious homemade veal sausage in white wine and dressed with pecorino romano. Order this soul-satisfying dish with a glass of 2014 Chianti Selvapiana.

Somm’s Kitchen’s pumpkin mole soup

There’s not much of a change in the secondi part of the menu that includes filet mignon, rack of lamb, veal chops and salmon. On the night I visited, Carole suggested the special of the day, a seafood soup called Ciaccio. A specialty of Italy’s Ligurian coast, the soup is a rich medley of five types of fish and assorted shellfish.

Il Cortile’s impressive wine list has won Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence from 2014-2017. It lists a good number of fine Central Coast wines along with Old World wines with an emphasis on Italy. There’s a vast selection from Toscana and Piemonte along with other regions such as Alto Adige, Veneto, Campana, Sicilia, Marche and Abruzzo.

Chef Tom Santos of Somm’s Kitchen

At the newly opened Somm’s Kitchen, I found a couple of soup additions signaling fall/winter season. “We don’t change our menu often,” said sommelier and co-owner Ian Adamo. The soups whipped up by chef partner Tom Santos include the pumpkin mole and cream of chantrelle mushrooms.

The pumpkin soup gets a Southwest spin topped with a swirl of mole sauce, pepitas and a touch of local honey. The creamy soup is a delectable medley of flavors — sweetness combined with a spicy kick and crunchiness all in one bite.

Santos is considering adding Scottish grouse to the fall menu. So next time you’re at Somm’s Kitchen check the menu for this bird speciality.

This is the first of a two-part story.

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About the author: Columnist Mira Honeycutt

Honeycutt has more than 20 years of experience as a wine consultant and wine journalist. Currently, she is the California contributor to Sommelier India Wine Magazine. Her wine and food coverage has been published in the Harper’s Bazar India, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong Tatler, The Hollywood Reporter, USA Today, Los Angeles Magazine, Los Angeles Times and www.zesterdaily.com. She was a contributing wine blogger on the highly popular Los Angeles radio station KCRW’s Good Food blog. Honeycutt is also the author of “California’s Central Coast, The Ultimate Winery Guide: From Santa Barbara to Paso Robles,” as well as the curator of the soon to be published book, The Winemakers of Paso Robles.