- Michael Gebert
- Fettucini made with grano arso, burnt flour.
“This is something you’d only have seen in Puglia,” chef John Coletta of Quartino, the two-story Italian restaurant in River North, says. “Even in Lazio, you wouldn’t see it.”
“In my opinion, its place is pasta. It started that way; why not keep it that way?” Coletta says. “People used to flavor pasta doughs, whether it was lemon or pepper or whatever the flavoring is. If you utilize this dough properly, using it for a pasta preparation, it’s probably going to be a pretty incredible experience.”
- Michael Gebert
Esposito can start two crusts at once which is impressive, though he focuses on tossing and stretching one at a time. He explains that pizzas from Puglia are usually made with seafood, and the day before, he and Coletta had made a thick, briny tomato sauce with olives and anchovies. He makes a pizza, smears the sauce around it—and then I know it’s the first one he’s made because he picks up one of Quartino’s pizza peels, sized to their standard pizzas, and it’s too small for the pizza he’s just made.
Stracci con cime de rape, stracci with broccoli rabe using the grano arso, will go on the menu on February 1; the pizzas will follow at some point, but no date has been set yet.
