Dining at Oliveto, the Italian-inspired California restaurant and café in Rockridge district of Oakland, is a treat many people (some coming from Italy and France) are looking forward to when visiting the San Francisco Bay Area, and a not-to-be-missed event during one of their dinner series that also include Tomato, Oceanic, and Whole Hog.
Oliveto, a household name for every gourmand in the East Bay and beyond, goes all out with the renowned fall Truffle Dinners. Special cocktails are created for the occasion, like White (St. George Spirits gin “Terroir,” Dolin vermouth, and Alba [white] truffle) and Black (High West “Double Rye,” Rosolis olive leaf rosolio, Chalk Hill olio nuovo, egg white, Oliveto cardamom bitters, and black truffle.
Truffle Sour is made with El Dorado rum, 3-year cask-aged; Combier bitter orange; lime; Oliveto sassafras bitters, and truffle salt rim. Let’s pause here and give a little praise to the truffle salt… The aroma of dried black truffles in it is so distinct, powerful, and omnipresent that it lingers long after the cocktail is consumed and all the salt from the grass rim is licked away!
Truffles, versatile delicious subterranean mushrooms – so hard to get and so easy to love – are in everything on the Oliveto special menu, or can be shaved over everything these few days in November.
Executive Chef Jonah Rhodehamel features old favorites and new creations, particularly well-suited to express the qualities of the aromatic fungus.
Crudo of fluke with black truffle, shaved artichoke, and Chalk Hill olio nuovo is a delicate cold antipasto, large enough to share, with truffle shavings adding an earthy tone to the tender white and pink flesh of fish.
Truffles emit the most intense flavor in warm antipasti. Crispy sweetbreads with wild mushrooms, fingerling potatoes, and Madeira are lightly breaded, silky on the inside, and become purely decadent with a dose of white truffle shavings administered tableside.
Crespelle of Dungeness crab with stinging nettles and black truffle are toy-like cute and positively addictive.
It might be hard to pick a pasta dish among the appetizing Primi. German Butterball potato gnocchi with vinsanto-duck liver sugo surely don’t disappoint. Tasty little morsels of rich dough bathed in an equally rich succulent sauce are a case of culinary perfection when topped with picturesquely round shavings of winter white truffle.
Truffled rabbit boudin blanc with braised cabbage, Pink Lady apples, and poultry sugo is another hard-to-decide choice among the tantalizing Secondi – plump white juicy sausage sprinkled with just enough truffle shavings to make diners eat it all up, even though anyone should be at the full satisfaction point by now.
But wait! There’s more. There’s a special Desserts for Truffle Dinners menu, which includes Bittersweet chocolate cake with hazelnut crumble and truffle crema inglese. Enough said.
There’s even black truffle ice cream with distinct chunks of truffle imbedded in the creamy round scoop.
A glorious tradition of truffle dinners began when Bob Klein, who co-owns Oliveto with his wife Maggie Klein, began traveling to the Italian countryside to visit legendary truffle hunter Giorgio Sacchini in the fall – the season for tartufi bianchi, hunted with his prized dogs. 18 years later, Bob is still shaving truffles into diners’ plates sharing the joy of culinary indulgence with his numerous guests.
Founded in 1986 with the simple intention to bring the flavors of the northern Mediterranean to California, Oliveto has been a Bay Area leader in sourcing the best seasonal, sustainable, and local ingredients through a network of passionate purveyors, and was an original restaurant pioneer of the whole animal movement for the region. Under the direction of Chef Rhodehamel, Oliveto offers house-cured salumi, handmade pastas created with specially milled Community Grains flours, and unique heirloom tomatoes grown specifically for Oliveto’s kitchen.
With 104-seat upstairs dining room and a 36-seat café downstairs, Oliveto is at once a special occasion destination and a neighborhood spot that appeals to a local, sophisticated, and well-traveled Bay Area audience.
Truffle Dinners are served nightly from 5:30 p.m. until closing at Oliveto Restaurant & Café, 5655 College Avenue, Oakland, CA 94618. Call for reservations 510-547-5356. For more information visit www.oliveto.com.
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