I have a checkered past with Vinings. Vinings straddles the perimeter, and in doing so, combines the best and worst of both worlds. There are a lot of faux-fine dining restaurants in this area–restaurants far more interested in providing a convincing illusion of fine dining than taking the pride and effort to produce serious food. The landscape is more often than not a rash of restaurants catering to people that enjoy dining but aren’t passionate about food and the craft behind it. To us foodies, eating doesn’t begin and end with the meal. Food carries with it history, family, culture, stories and work. Foodies look for everything that led up to the plated dish.
But uneven as it may be, Vinings does have some great examples of this kind of commitment to food, they are just rare. Chef Paolo Tondo, owner of Taverna Fiorentina, has the prerequisite passion in spades. Originally from Rome, raised in Florence and equal parts raconteur, engineer and gastronome, he has built a fascinating pean to Italian food tucked in a strip mall right off of Cobb Parkway.
Inside Taverna Fiorentina
The bread
Picture the scene: Chef Paolo and I talking shop at the bar, a vodka for me, a shot of wine for the chef. I glance at the menu and the daily specials. The first question is simple: why Vinings? Chicken-and-the-egg dilemma notwithstanding, why offer midtown food outside of midtown? I go even further and grill him: what’s the story behind the lunch menu’s inexorable decline into mediocrity?
“I cut out lunch!” he belts out while grumbling something pejorative about the chicken parmigiana. Chef Paolo is intense and he’s anything but shy.
He admits that lunch is unworkable, fighting an impossible war where fine dining, more often than not, is bound to lose. The dinner, however, is where his personality comes through.
Whereas lunch was a no-win propposition, dinner is still not without its challenges. I’m always keen to segment the menu into the sections that are obviously not what the chef wanted to serve but has to, the quasi-compromises and the gems. Chef Paolo and I pore over the menu sifting accordingly. Tonight should be special. As is tradition with Foodie Atlanta, we will let him decide our fate.
We had no idea what kind of a long journey we were in for. Chef Paolo’s eyes gleam as our meal begins. House made bread and a fruit olive oil appear, and we heartily indulge in wine. A dual blitzkrieg of Carpaccios is underway: octopus and beef. The octopus is inspiring. Forgiveness must normally go hand-in-hand with octopus; its chewy, intractable texture is part of the fleas that come with the dog. Not so in this dish. Much like our experience at Repast, the careful slicing of the octopus, along with the process used to make this dish yields a remarkably subtle and delicious experience. The beef carpaccio manages to likewise delight.
Octopus Carpaccio
Beef Carpaccio
We ate greedily when a full on assault of charcuterie and cheese was unleashed on our table. Chef Paolo, now grinning and beaming over his house-made salumi and his imported delights, starts to resemble Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate. Sure, he’s the devil, but you want to give into the pleasures of the flesh. His own calabrese and dry sausage are disturbingly good. The coppa and jamón serrano that he had flown in, impressive to say the least.
The cheeses lend themselves easily to overindulgence. A healthy slab of drunken goat, a port-infused cheese, some Pecorino and a chunk of Fontina. We’re practically elbowing each other out of the way as we reach for another bite, when a board with some grilled sweet sausage comes out. This is going to be a long evening.
We catch our breath, pick as modestly as we can at the festoon of meats and cheese that has been placed and drink more wine. It’s time to rest. Reflection is important.
Salumi!
Cheeses
Sweet sausage
A great deal of awesome conversation with Chef Paolo and the staff unfolds. We take the time to dissect the origins of the names that we give food: Carpaccio, Carbonara, Puttanesca. Chef Paolo then strikes the right chord between scoffs at French food: Italian food is simple. Both the jab at French cuisine and the remark about the simplicity of Italian food immediately reminded me of Bill Buford’s book about his experiences at Babbo and in Itay: Heat. At one point in the book, the author posits that Babbo can never truly be Italian food out of sheer complexity. Though it sounds like a harsh indictment, Buford manages to elevate Babbo by concluding that while it may be a tad too complex, its motivations are nothing if not a true homage to the cuisine of Italy, even if it ends up being a starting point and not its entirety.
Before I can finish digesting the intricacies of what’s actually underway here, more food comes out. A trio of ravioli come out: nudi, veal and braised short rib. The nudi are intoxicatingly good, and my weakness for braised fatty meats like short rib make this an easy affront to handle.
There’s more wine and more musings. This isn’t a meal anymore, it’s an experience: this is what you do when you sit down to eat with family.
Ravioli: veal, nudi and braised short rib
It's what's for dinner.
But the end isn’t near and a gargantuan plate of meats is brought. There is dry aged ribeye (48 days), generously sliced and perfectly seasoned. There is a cavalcade of lamb chops, some grilled shrimp, wilted spinach with pancetta and some beautifully roasted rosemary potatoes. We weren’t hungry, but we still dug in heartily. Gluttony, we figured, is warranted in these situations.
Time to call it quits? Of course not. Chef Paolo brings out a home made cheesecake so good and quirky, it makes everyone reevaluate their definition of cheesecake. Limoncello is drank and espressos sipped. We look at our watches and realized that we’ve been eating for over three hours and are still a bit disappointed that it has to end. All good things, we suppose, must end.
The meal has ended, but our questions remain. Can we bankroll this guy in midtown or are we being greedy? One of my pet peeves is whenever I’m asked where to go eat, but given the prerequisite that it be outside the city limits. That’s harder than asking for something that tastes divine but isn’t fattening. The rule, for me at least, is that good food will require driving into the city. I suppose that Taverna Fiorentina is the exception that proves the rule.