Osteria Stellina

Osteria Stellina is one of the best restaurants that you have never heard of. It is located in the town of Point Reyes Station, about an hour and fifteen minutes drive north of San Francisco. The town of Point Reyes Station is located in western Marin County and is the gateway to the stunningly beautiful national preserve, Point Reyes National Seashore.

I am amazed that a very small town with a population of about 350 has such a superb restaurant. Osteria Stellina is the equal of the best restaurants in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco. Also in town is the excellent Cowgirl Creamery and Tomales Bay Foods, along with several bakeries, an excellent book store and other shopping that can keep one busy when not out enjoying the beautiful beaches, hiking, birding, kayaking etc.


Stellina describes its cooking as "Point Reyes Italian" with an unwavering commitment to local organic products. On a typical dinner menu you will find several raw options (oysters, shrimp) 10 appetizers (from soup to salad), several pizzas, four pastas and about six main dishes. The wine list is small with a few decent selections and corkage is $20 per bottle.  They could do more with wine selections, but have some good local choices.  Stellina also has a dedicated pastry chef turning out some very good desserts, so make sure to leave room after dinner!! As an aside, you can find some of her dessert and pastries at Toby's coffee bar in the middle of town.


In two recent dinners we sampled local lettuce salad, a raw zucchini and spinach salad, slow cooked baby octopus, chilies, tomatoes and mint, greens and beans (a "signature dish" of perfectly creamy cannellini beans and chard), black cod with oven roasted cauliflower smashed potatoes and braised greens, braised goat shoulder with creamy herbed polenta, chocolate pudding with whipped cream and shortbread cookie, and an apple & huckleberry crisp with a small pitcher of cream on the side!


I have eaten and cooked a lot of excellent black cod in Seattle and Orcas Island in Washington. The black cod from Bodega was by far the best I have experienced. It tasted like it had been pulled out of the water minutes before cooking and was perfectly seared. It was so good we had to order it two nights in a row. Just a gorgeous dish. All the other dishes were equally as good. Two beautiful meals in a very pleasant atmosphere and a special area. The service was friendly, knowledgeable, and obliging. I very much look forward to returning to Point Reyes Station and Stellina.

Open every day for lunch and dinner

1.415.663.9988

Osteria Stellina

11285 Highway 1

PO Box 868

Point Reyes Station, CA 94956

Risotto

One of my all time favorite dishes is risotto. I don't often order it in restaurants because I worry it wont be up to snuff. In most restaurants they tend to take short cuts with risotto, and while it can still be good,  believe me, you can make better at home!  Risotto is one of simplest dishes you can cook, which is not to say it is simple, but I think with a little care anyone can master this satisfying dish. Do not believe that you must constantly stir the risotto. You should watch it and stir often but not all the time.

During the year I try to roast the occasional free range farmers market chicken. When done eating the chicken, I always make stock with the carcass, adding an onion, carrot, celery stick, and some herbs if I have any around. Using just the left over chicken with bones would be quite sufficient if no vegetables are around. If you roast 3 or 4 chickens a year this should give you enough stock to last you a while. Do not buy canned stock. You are better off using plain water.

Take chicken carcass and put in a pot (with vegetables or not), cover with water. Bring to a boil and then simmer, top off or at least ajar, for about an hour or so. The stock should be strained to keep out the large bits. Put it in the fridge, and the next day skim off any fat that has accumulated. Freeze until needed.

Start by bringing the stock to a simmer and salt it to taste. While the stock is heating, finely chop a small onion, shallot, or leek (depends whats in season and what you can find at the market) and saute over medium heat (don't let it brown) in a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (365 Whole Foods Italian is an excellent cheap oil) or butter, or a combination. Butter will make the dish richer, so consider what ingredient or ingredients you will be adding later.  The best part about risotto is that you can add literally anything to it. See what leftovers you have in the fridge. Maybe some of the shredded chicken from the carcass, an old carrot, squid, shrimp, peas, bacon, ham etc. The risotto pictured is with carrot and chard, made with shallot and Vialone Nano rice from Italy.

2nd addition of stock

The occasional stir

After about 4-5 minutes the onion will be soft  and translucent, so add some rice (please try to find Vialone Nano or Carnaroli, otherwise arborio will do in a pinch). I never measure, but if you are cooking for two, 2/3 cup will be enough. Pour the rice in and start stirring to coat the rice with the oil. Keep stirring frequently about 4-5 minutes. Again, do not let the rice brown. After about 4-5 minutes the rice will start turning a bit opaque and at this point I usually add some very cold white wine (sometimes I add red, you decide) which shocks the pan and the rice. How much wine? Maybe 1/2 a cup, but don't skimp, and don't use any wine you would not drink! Again, I never measure. The wine should be bubbling (if not turn the heat up just a bit) and you should be stirring a fair amount. Once the wine almost evaporates start adding some of the hot stock. I use almost a full ladle for the first addition and from then on I use about half a ladle full. After the first addition of stock shake the pan or give it a stir and you can leave it alone for a couple minutes. Give it a stir occasionally and when the most recent addition of stock is almost evaporated, add a small ladle full. Keep repeating this process until the rice is al dente. If you are going to add ingredients that need a bit of cooking, then add them after the third or fourth addition of liquid. If the ingredients added are not in need of further cooking you can add them when the risotto is almost done. I added the chopped carrots about 10 minutes in, and the chard near the end, about 20 minutes in. The bits of green in picture #1 are some bottom leaves of a romanesco I had. I added those early because they needed a bit ore cooking, like the carrotts.

Usually, when the rice is done, I will turn the flame off and add a smaller amount of liquid and stir. In this case I also added a small pat of butter which gave a  little richness to the dish. At this point you can add some freshly grated grana or parmesan, salt and pepper to taste. You can also add some grated cheese once the rice has been plated, along with a few good turns of the pepper mill and some good sea salt on top.

Flame off, a little liquid added and a pat of butter stirred in

Plated with grated grana, black cypress salt and generous lashings of freshly ground black pepper

Cotogna

Michael and Lindsay Tusk have opened Cotogna (the name means Quince in Italian), the casual sister to Quince, in the second week of Nov 2010. The restaurant, located next door to Quince in the Jackson Square neighborhood of San Francisco, has an open kitchen featuring a wood burning rotisserie and oven in which they burn almond wood. The menu is fairly large, featuring one price fixed menu (three courses for $24), seven antipasti at $10 each, six pastas at $16, two pizzas at $15,  four items from the rotisserie at $16-$24, seven small vegetable dishes at $6,  six dessert items at $7, and several cheeses for $6. In addition the menu lists three daily dishes, supposedly specials, although they don't seem to change every day.

The rectangular space is rustic, warm and cozy, with a very high beamed ceiling and most of the walls  old brick. There is a small food bar in front of the open kitchen and a small bar for drinking and eating on the opposite side of the room.

The prices seem very reasonable for the high quality of food. All wines on the small list are $40 bottle and many are available by the glass at $10. The list put together by David Lynch of Quince is not nearly as interesting as I had hoped. For $40/$10 there could be more interesting wines.

We started with spinach sformato with grana padano fonduta (think flan with cheese sauce), Monterey Bay squid with grapefruit and puntarella (a bitter green), and tartare of halibut with crisp flatbread. The squid was the only boring dish of the bunch. It lacked seasoning and although the squid was of exceptional quality the dish was not as good as the sum of its ingredients. The sformato was excellent and the halibut was simple and very fresh, only seasoned with good quality olive oil and salt.

For primi we chose the pappardelle verde (wide cut green noodles) with lamb cooked in the wood  oven, and farm egg raviolo (1 large ravioli) with brown butter. The quality of the pasta at Cotgona, as at Quince, is superb. The pappardelle was cooked al dente and the shredded lamb was earthy. The raviolo was superb, silky, buttery, the egg yolk spilling out and mixing with the butter and coating the outside of the pasta. We did have to ask for bread, which is available upon request, to soak up all the delicious juices.

For a main we shared the spit roasted pork with wild fennel and hot pepper, along with a small vegetable dish of satsuma mandarin, fennel and olive. The pork was very tasty, the peppers were not very hot and did not get in the way of the bottle of Teroldego Rotaliano (a rustic red grape from Trentino Italy, near Austria) from producer Roberto Zeni.

We decided to share one dessert, the Sierra Beauty apple and quince crostata (tart). This along with the squid were the weakest dishes of the night.

Michael Tusk's style is quite rich and the food here is no exception. The quality is excellent, the room inviting and comfortable. Cotogna is extremely popular, so make your reservations early or show up late for some of the seats they hold for walk ins.  The service was excellent and friendly. Heath pottery plates are used here, as in many of the top Bay Area restaurants. A very nice touch indeed!

Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave
San Francisco, CA
415 775 8508
cotognasf.com