When a new restaurant opens, it's hard to know ahead of time how things will turn out. Some places get a lot of buzz but never live up to it, others turn out fabulous food but can't make ends meet. Some places are packed night after night, even if the food isn't anything to scream and shout about. Unless you have a trusted crystal ball in front of you, sorting out a restaurant's fate is usually the job of Father Time.

But with Laiola, even before I stepped inside I knew that the place was going to take off. Mostly, because a mere four days after opening -- without a liquor license, no less -- it already had.

I rolled up to the old Pizza My Heart location on Chestnut Street near 8 pm on a weekday night. The narrow storefront is all windows, and it was packed full of P.Y.T.s, with more hanging around outside, madly texting friends to meet them there. A faint pinkish glow emanated from within thanks to the stunning pressed copper ceiling; it's a very flattering light for all the pretties (and the not-so-pretties, too).

When I walked in, I was smacked in the face by the cold, hard truth: Laiola couldn't serve any wine yet. I looked behind the bar at all the shiny wine bottles and sighed. The good news? They were waiving corkage, and Nectar Wine Lounge down the street was kindly selling their retail wines at 10% off. I turned to my friend Karen to discuss who would go fetch a bottle, when I got even better news: My friend Brett was just finishing his meal at the bar, and he had more than half a bottle of albarino left. Would Karen and I like it?

Let's see. Is Thomas Keller a perfectionist?

We plopped down next to Brett and, from our perch at the bar, watched one of the cooks drape thick slabs of succulent-looking slow-roasted piglet over a pile of gigante beans ($19). Plate after plate, the aroma was enough to reverse my unfavorable impression of roast suckling pig formed years ago in a heavy wooden-beamed restaurant outside Madrid. I vowed to try it again one day.

Laiola bills itself as a "California restaurant inspired by Spain" -- and it's heavy on the Spain. A glance at the wine list showed it's all Spanish-grown or Spanish varietals, with most offerings by the individual miniature carafe or the bottle. A clever touch, those carafinas, which hold one-third of a bottle of wine. They look to be a great value, too, hovering near $10 apiece. Rumor has it that cocktails created by Camber Lay (Range, Frisson) will rock the house soon.

Chef Mark Denham (42 Degrees, Hawthorne Lane, Manresa, Postrio) has created a flexible menu, with a small selection of house-cured charcuterie, a dozen appetizers, a handful of entrees, and a few quick desserts. We opted to share a series of tapas, and loved the spicy salchicon ($6), five fire-engine red coins of pork sausage served on a slab of wood. Laiola's website says it's made from "a mix of coarsely ground Niman Ranch pork shoulder and back fat seasoned with plenty of Pimenton garlic, chile powder and cayenne pepper." Mmm.



We also oohed and aahed over the marinated local sardines, garden vegetables in escabeche ($11), crisp local sardines roasted and served atop baby vegetables like carrots, shallots, and cauliflower, each pickled in their own brine. I'm calling this the dish of the summer. Like the equally good version at Nua, it alternates between salty and sweet, cool and hot, crisp and soft.

The deep fryer was down so we didn't get to sample the patatas bravas ($6), a classic Spanish dish comprised of thick wedges of potatoes dressed with spicy aioli. But the bacon-wrapped Medjool dates stuffed with chorizo, grilled, and drizzled with aged Balsamic vinegar more than made up for their absence. They looked like small brown lumps when they arrived, but they were so smoky-sweet and good that I didn't mind burning my fingers or my tongue to finish them off.

Service was adept, and our knowledageable waitress was full of passionate recommendations. Not all of them paid off -- the side dish of rapini, for example, was undercooked and fibrous -- but given that Laiola was only four days old and besieged by malfunctioning kitchen equipment, delinquent paperwork, and masses of hungry diners, I forgave them their trespasses.



We didn't have dessert, but I was sorely tempted, especially after watching Brett slather toast with thick chocolate ganache drizzled with fruity Arbequina olive oil and a dash of Maldon sea salt ($7). It's a dish I've had before, even made before, and I speak from experience when I say it is the epitome of divine simplicity.

When we left Laiola, it was still buzzing (still!) even though no wine could be sold on premises in this notoriously "thirsty" neighborhood. It is already a place to see and be seen, but it is also a place to eat -- and eat well -- and, like the patina on the copper bar, I expect it will only improve with age.

Laiola
2031 Chestnut Street
(415) 346-5641
San Francisco
*No reservations*
Open 7 days a week, 5:30 - 10:30 pm (bar open till 11 pm)

Labels: catherine nash, Laiola, Marina, Mark Denham, restaurants, reviews, Spanish food, tapas

From the world of food writing, only a scant cup's worth of articles slip into my unconscious and remain there year after year. Sometimes they're so indelibly imprinted that I need no reminding they are there; it still smarts to think about Daniel Patterson's declaration in the New York Times that culinary creativity was all but dead in Northern California, and I have Bill Buford and the New Yorker to thank every time I look mournfully at my pot of pasta water knowing that, unless I boil batch after successive batch of noodles in it and accumulate all that lovely starch, I will never produce anything as good as they do at Babbo.

Other times, the things I read become stowaways in the deserted cargo hold of my mind. Just like I didn't know I remembered all the lyrics to Xanadu until my sister bought me the DVD last year, I hadn't the foggiest notion just how much my gray matter had absorbed of Calvin Trillin's ode to pimientos de Padron until I spotted a bag of the knobby green peppers at the farmers' market a few weeks ago.

In an instant, Trillin's words were dislodged much in the way that Anton Ego's first bite of ratatouille transported him years into the past. I felt some unknown force take over my arms and command them to reach forward, tossing bag after bag of bite-sized peppers into my carryall. Despite never once having enjoyed them late at night in a tapas bar in Spain, I sensed the sky darken to the purple of nighttime, and a warm summer breeze rustled past, carrying with it the faint music of espanol. I looked down, surprised not to see a glass of sherry in my hand.

What makes these humble peppers so magical? Well, biting into one is always a surprise; it could be sweet and nutty, or fiery hot. Only one in a dozen packs a punch, but you never know which one you've got until it's too late. They're also hard to find. In 1997, when Happy Quail Farms started selling them, they were the only grower in the country. They're still the only farm in the Bay Area that cultivates them.

When I got home, I fried the pimientos de Padron up in olive oil, tossed on a few generous pinches of salt, and bit in to one, still hot from the pan. A tingling heat flashed across my tongue -- the kind that comes from the power of capsaicin, not flame. I went in for another. The next few were mild, but it was the elusive spicy ones that kept me coming back, bite after bite.

Fried Pimientos de Padron

Ingredients:

olive oil
1 bag pimientos de Padron
coarse salt

Preparation:

1. Cover the bottom of a skillet with olive oil and heat over medium-high until very hot.

2. Toss the peppers in whole. Shake the pan occasionally. Once small black and gray blisters appear (about 2-4 minutes in) they are done.

3. Pour them onto a plate, sprinkle with plenty of coarse salt to taste, and serve hot.

Serves 2-4 as a starter

Labels: catherine nash, Happy Quail Farms, pimientos de Padron, stuffed peppers, tapas