Foodbuzz 24,24,24: Dante’s Feast – at Incanto

by Sam Tackeff | Apr 26, 2009 | Restaurants

For the past few months I’ve been walking past the doors of Incanto every day and stopping to look at the menu. It’s pretty much become a daily ritual, as it is located exactly three minutes from my house. Menus are a little bit like illicit magazines for me. I sneak by each day to look at the list, memorizing each carefully composed and crafted sentence until “Foie gras torchon with preserved plums and grilled stirato” is seared into my head so I can dream about it all day long.

I think it’s fair to say that Incanto is different. Neighborhood Italian, for sure, but certainly not your spaghetti and meatballs joint. It specializes in Offal: the bits and pieces of the animal: including the heart, liver, kidneys, and brain. Bones, blood and guts, oh my! Does that scare you? Because it doesn’t scare me. I’m the kid that used to ask my mom to make liver, and would steal the giblets from the pan at Thanksgiving. The best part about it is that the stuff is good for you – it’s where the nutrients are in the animal – but aside from that, I’ll avoid talking about “healthy”, because I find that you lose all trust when you start that conversation.

Chris Cosentino, head chef at Incanto, cares passionately about using the whole animal, not letting anything go to waste. Offal are cuts of meat that are often thrown out, where in thousands of previous generations they have been rightfully acknowledged as delicacy. How is it that there is a whole generation of people who think that beef comes in two forms: ground, and steak – and are used to purchasing meat in sterilized Styrofoam packages. As the nation has become plagued by both health issues and financial struggles, going back to our roots and eating local, fresh, and limiting waste is key. Fortunately, eating from the whole animal is not only the more sustainable choice, but opens up a whole variety of tastes and textures to please the palate.

In addition to their use of offal, and locally procured meat, Incanto’s menu is full of locally grown fruits and vegetables, artisanal foods, and herbs from their own rooftop garden. They carry their own line of “tasty salted pig parts”, under the name Boccalone, which you can also get at their store in the Ferry Building. Do try the cone of meat. Its like a snow cone… of meat. I’m also a big fan of Chef Cosentino’s website, Offal Good.

I’ve wanted to go to Incanto for several months now. What was holding me back? I wanted everything. How could I possibly choose an appetizer, entree and dessert on a responsible budget? This, in retrospect was silly, and stupid. In the most fortunate twist of events, FoodBuzz wrote me back saying that I had been selected for their 24,24,24, where 24 blogs enjoy 24 meals in 24 hours on FoodBuzz’s generous dime! We just have to document it – which isn’t hard, because I’m usually in restaurants taking notes of everything I eat in my moleskin. So last night I brought out my camera and mini tripod, and went nuts.

Evening Menu

for four of us brave adventurers

Liquid libation: Vietti Barbera D’Asti 2006

Complimentary Sparkling Water. Who doesn’t love that?
*    *    *
Foie gras torchon with preserved plums and grilled stirato
Sweetbreads with peas & tarragon
Antipasto platter of Boccalone artisan salumi, roasted garlic, and marinated vegetables
*    *    *
Spaghettini, Sardinian cured tuna heart, egg yolk & parsley
Capunti, mortadella, sweet peas, ramps & potatoes
Rabbit Liver-Foie gras ravioli with grappa brown butter
*    *    *
Braised pork shoulder with rhubarb and fava beans
Whole roasted local sardines, garlic, chilli, capers & parsley
Slow-roasted lamb neck with baby fava beans, chilli and mint
*    *    *
Peas with honey and a knife
*    *    *
Flourless chocolate cake, beet ice cream and poppy seed crumble
Cream Soda float and lavender toffee-chocolate chip cookies

FANTASTIC, RIGHT?

And now, lets take a look:

Here is the foie gras that I had been dreaming about. It was creamy, smooth, and flavorful, and paired with that most amazing preserved plum that was one of the stars of the meal.

A soapbox note on foie gras: A few weeks ago, a restaurant in San Francisco was targeted for it’s use of Foie Gras, which is enlarged duck or goose liver. I care passionately about the quality of life given to the animals that I eat, and try to avoid eating factory farmed meat at all costs. I don’t believe that the process of creating foie gras is harmful to the animal, and I’ve seen it in person. I also believe that it is a dangerous thing for the government to make laws against it, and other artisanal food practices, particularly when they aren’t doing much at all to prevent the cramped, illness inducing, and environmentally harmful methods of factory farming. Incanto has an informative and well written response here, that I believe really sums up the issue and is well worth the read:  Letters from Incanto: Shock and Foie
*Step off soapbox here*

Look here! Sweetbread! It’s not a brain, and it’s not bread, it’s actually a gland. I remember refusing to eat the stuff for years, even though it was my grandmother’s favorite. Well, you could say that I’ve become enlightened. It takes some standing out on an odd textural limb to eat this stuff, but if you can perservere, it’s really, really good.

And here, for your viewing pleasure is the bread and olive tapenade at Incanto. I know we were trying to be prudent, and normally I’d avoid excess bread so I could save space for the food, but the bread was good we ended up with seconds. The few slices left became my lunch today with the tapenade and leftover roasted garlic from the antipasto platter smeared all over the toast.

And so began the pasta course. We chose three small pastas to avoid having to be rolled out of the restaurant after the meal. It was a good decision. This first one is the Spaghettini with the tuna heart, one of the only dishes I was ambivalent about – only because I’m not terribly fond of tuna heart. The fun part though is the warm egg yolk that you get to poke at the table to make your own little sauce.

Here are the ravioli pockets of rabbit liver-foie gras.

This was my favorite of the pasta courses. Possibly because it reminded me of a childhood favorite of macaroni with ham and peas. But it was a grown up version, and very tasty indeed.

The main courses.

We had tried to pace ourselves, really. I think we were all a little shocked by the time the main courses came out. So. Much. Food. I think Dante would have been proud of us, because we were really pushing it here. What can I tell you about these dishes? Everything was really, really delicious. The sardines were fantastic, and in the spirit of whole eating, I ate the eyes (after closing my own). Tasty, I swear. The braised pork was falling apart and the fava beans were screaming Spring! Spring! I swooned. The peas with honey and a knife – it’s pea season- they are fresh – sweet – you could feed this to any kid who hated peas and I promise a convert.

This is Sean, our server, preparing our lamb neck for us. It involved taking two forks, and ripping the meat down the side away from the bone and the gristle. The gristle, he explained to us, is white tendon fiber you don’t eat. We could, if we were interested, get the marrow out and eat it. Marrow happens to be one of my favorite bits of offal, I remember gleefully sucking the marrow out of the bones when my mother made lamb shank for us at home. The problem here became – how would one appropriately get the marrow in a restaurant, from a bone the size of a hand? The answer: by poking it through with one of the tasty and delicious bread sticks. I wish I had a picture.

Dessert. Here it is, two measly, slightly grainy photos of some of the most fantastic dishes we had consumed all evening. I tried for better photos, but it was getting dark, and even though I had requested a 6pm reservation (for natural light in the photos!) by the end we had lingered too long, and my hand was shaky. Sigh. Ok, but really, that beet ice cream was killer. Beets and Chocolate happen to be a fantastic combination. And the cream soda float was divine. They make their own cream soda. It’s awesome. If anything, I’m going to become a regular here for dessert.

And if that wasn’t enough, we continued our evening in the spirit of excess: heading down to the Haight for a long post meal stroll (a.k.a. wait) for after dinner cocktails at Alembic. Last week I had the duck heart with pickled pineapple from these guys and went a little crazy- but now there was no room left for food. I had the Southern Exposure: Junipero Gin, lime juice, mint, a touch of sugar and a shot of celery juice. That folks, is a tasty, tasty beverage.

THANK YOU FOODBUZZ!