Coit Tower, situated in Pioneer Park in San Francisco, stands 64 metres tall. Add to that the fact that it is perched atop Telegraph Hill, in a storied neighbourhood of the same name, and the tower becomes a 150 metre, panoramic vantage point from which to survey the city below.
On a fogless morning, you can see the bustling streets of North Beach, an area brought to life by Italian immigrants to California. The restaurants, delis, cafés and markets that call North Beach home today produce exquisite fare that fuses Italian roots and traditions with New World innovation and ingredients.
It was here that the revered cioppino was born. Cioppino is a rustic seafood soup-stew hybrid with a tomato and white wine base. It is a cousin to similar dishes originating in the Mediterranean, most notably Marseille’s famed bouillabaisse.
The story goes that Italian fishermen in North Beach, hailing largely from Genoa, would head out into the Bay for the day’s catch. Upon returning, fishermen who didn’t fare as well as their peers would be given a morsel or two by the others, filling a pot with assorted goods in order to make a cioppino. The practice was allegedly a reciprocal affair, such that no fisherman should ever go hungry.
It’s a romantic idea, this brotherhood of the stew, this cobbling together of diverse seastuffs that gave rise to one of America’s greatest culinary contributions. I think it is just as likely that Cioppino was a deliberate, thoughtful creation.
It makes perfect sense to me that early San Fran residents employed California-grown tomatoes, locally made wine and a selection of the bountiful catch available from the Bay to create an amazing dish, the blueprint for which already existed elsewhere.
Whatever the truth of its backstory, Cioppino is a spectacular dish, when made properly, like it is at the classically elegant, comfortably polished Amici Restaurant in West Vancouver where I tucked into a fragrant bowl of it on a recent visit with my daughter, Blondie. She wrinkled her nose upon trying the bold fennel, shellfish, and wine-scented tomato broth, but I was deeply pleased with Amici’s execution. The broth had a deep brick colour and featured nice chunks of tomato, onion, herbs, and a generous quotient of heady garlic.
The seafood selection was impressive with scallops, mussels, prawns, crab, salmon, and white fish of some description in the mix. A single giant prawn, the size of a small lobster tail, sat atop the mountain of other seafood.
To my delight, the seafood was all cooked perfectly, not a dry morsel to be found. Save a couple of slightly skunky mussels (you always roll the dice with these shellfish, I’m afraid) Amici’s iteration was nigh flawless. A round and rich, lightly oaked, slightly tropical but still suitably acidic chardonnay from The Hess Collection paired nicely and harked back to the cioppino’s place of origin.
Blondie is a big fan of Italian fare and she has become my default companion for reviews of this genre of cuisine. With her fastidious and yet still irresistibly cute seven-year-old manners she ordered an orange juice with soda and a bowl of Minestrone soup, and devoured every last morsel of carrot, celery, zucchini and half-tube of penne in rich, herb-laden broth.
I tucked into a very minimalist appetizer of grilled squid with tomato salsa and a simple side salad. Surprisingly, I found the salad to be the star of the dish with its light, aromatic and slightly sweet dressing that coated a delicate bouquet of exceptionally crisp, fresh leaves; perhaps I was just craving some greens. I paired the appetizer with a glass of reasonably priced, straightforward Orvieto.
Blondie was ultimately bested by her enormous entrée of Linguine Pomodoro, topped, at her request, with an ample layer of Parmesan cheese (I think she just likes the cool, spinny Zyliss cheese grater). The fresh pasta was a great showcase for a bright, faithful rendition of the classic tomato sauce that revealed notes of basil.
For dessert I grudgingly forfeited the excellent-sounding Zabaglione (a personal favourite, but sadly, as is custom, a wine-based, decidedly adult dish made for two) in favour of Chocolate Paté and Tiramisu. From what I was able to taste of it, the chocolate pate was silken and rich, enlivened by a drizzle of sour cherry coulis. Blondie made short work of it (“My dessert stomach wasn’t full, Dad”). The Tiramisu turned out to be a welcome adult treat after all, its ladyfinger biscuit base soaked in coffee liqueur and supporting a tall layer of velvety mascarpone.
Our meal of two appetizers, two mains, two desserts, two glasses of wine, a double espresso and a soda was $122 before gratuity.
Amici is located at 1747 Marine Drive in West Vancouver. Amici.ca. 604-913-1314.
