All
of us at Apertivo would like to invite you to visit our restaurant
in North Park, San Diego for Wine and Italian Tapas. We’ve all
been to restaurants that make you pick one huge trough of food when
what you really want is a little taste of several different dishes.
This is what we are trying to remedy here at Apertivo. All our food
is appetizer size portions of Italian inspired dishes made from the
freshest and highest quality ingredients available, no preservatives,
no MSG, no partially hydrogenated oils and minimally processed. All
our food is handmade here. We hope you feel like you’ve visited
our home for dinner and a glass of wine. All our wines are reasonably
priced because we believe that wine shouldn’t be pretentious
or intimidating, accessibility is the keyword. Nothing on the menu
has more than three to four ingredients; we think the food should
speak for itself. We use only extra virgin olive oil in all of our
foods and try at all times to evoke the spirit of true Mediterranean
cuisine, clean, fresh, and simple. Only the best produce we can buy
will be served and will change with the seasons. We hope you enjoy
having a real meal with us in a relaxed atmosphere and look forward
to having you over for dinner at Apertivo.
dining
out
Epicurious Eating: Apertivo
Hard to resist, easy on the wallet
by Frank Sabatini Jr.
Published Thursday, 16-Dec-2004 in issue 886
“You can’t even buy a salad at Jack-in-the-Box for these
prices!” exclaimed one of my dining cohorts as we gawked over
the menu at the new Apertivo. It was as though we were reading a serious
misprint. Italian tapas such as Shrimp Scampi, Chicken Parmesan and
Grilled Portobello Mushrooms all priced in the low single digits for
under $6 apiece? The portions must be microscopic, we thought. Suddenly
a $3 antipasto flew by us. “That doesn’t look so small,”
noted my other dining companion. “And I’m sure I saw meat
and cheese in it,” he blurted.
Still skeptical, we ordered it along with two other salads also costing
$3 each. Had we not been a trio, I could have gotten fat on greens.
The antipasto, though served on a pie-size plate, sported plenty of
mozzarella and diced salami for the price. The arugula salad with
crumbled Gorgonzola and sweet onions was also satisfying. Ditto for
the spinach salad with bits of hard-boiled egg. Sharing was believing.
Chef Ken Cassinelli and his wife, Janie Losli, are seemingly giving
away their Italian-tapas restaurant since opening last month. But
Cassinelli says, “The numbers are working out” when referring
to his bottom line. He also notes that overhead is low, given the
fact Losli waits on tables and there isn’t much else of a staff.
Faced with such bargain prices, we ordered lawlessly. From the meat
lineup, we tried the Grilled Chicken Breast ($4), a simple but delicious
filet served in a puddle of olive oil with parsley and a slice of
lemon. A couple of meatballs for a buck apiece proved tasty, too.
In fact it’s the first turkey meatball I’ve consumed that
almost fooled me into thinking I was eating beef. And an order of
six Grilled Shrimp ($5) ranked among our favorites, given their succulent
charred flavor.
There was little semblance to the influx of food to our table. But
part of the fun with tapas is that you eat in the order they’re
received. A generous serving of Roasted Red Peppers ($2), however,
could have been better utilized at the beginning of our repast for
pairing up with the chicken or salads. And we weren’t expecting
them to be served chilled. Although a nice plate of mixed olives for
the same price – some pitted, some not – kept us picking
from beginning to end, as did the complimentary warm, soft breadsticks
served with extra-creamy Darigold Butter.
It soon became evident that Cassinelli draws from his half-Italian
decent when cooking, as the food doesn’t struggle to capture
the rustic flavors of Italy. The Eggplant Parmesan ($4) steers clear
of the mushy, over-cheesed version I find in other restaurants. And
the marinara sauce, used also on the meatballs, tastes pure and fresh.
From the pasta category I can’t recommend enough the Puttanesca.
For a measly $4 you get a quaint serving of spaghetti, capellini,
linguine or penne dressed in a thin tomato sauce that mingles lovingly
with capers, anchovies and olives. Top it off with a few shakes of
grated Romano cheese from the table and say hello to heaven.
Pasta prices cap off at $6 if you opt for the Vongole sauce, made
with clams, garlic and olive oil. It’s the most expensive item
on the menu. For a couple bills less, the Pesto we ordered was of
fine pedigree. Cassinelli omits the pine nuts, which allows the basil
to blossom. And the Fettucini Alfredo was standard tasting, if not
a tad light on the cream and cheese.
Cassinelli intends to expand the menu soon, although we found plenty
of adequate choices that also included Fried Calamari, Lasagna, Roasted
Potatoes, Italian Greens and several other pasta plates.
A wine bar stocked mostly with Italian labels resides along the back
wall of the open dining room, which might cry for soundproofing on
busy nights. The casual atmosphere is nonetheless comfy and especially
enjoyable if Cassinelli comes out of the kitchen to schmooze. His
enthusiasm for this first-time restaurant venture is as contagious
as the food he serves.
From
the dessert cache you’ll find homemade Chocolate Mousse Pie
($3) made with Ghirardelli chocolate, mini Canoli ($2), tri-colored
Spumoni ice cream ($3) and a decadent Lemon Cheese Cake Mousse topped
with blueberries ($3).
It’s all good, especially when you consider that nowhere in
San Diego can you shovel down so many little meals for such a minor
blow to the wallet.
Epicurious
Eating:
Apertivo Italian Tapas and Wine Bar
Apertivo: more breadth for the buck
by Frank Sabatini
Published Thursday, 25-Oct-2007 in issue 1035
After visiting Apertivo when it first opened about three years ago,
I remember feeling pretty convinced that the unselfish portion sizes
of its Italian tapas would eventually shrink and that its low price
points would spike ridiculously. Anyone who knows firsthand a restaurant
owner’s struggle to preserve the bottom line would have surely
agreed.
Having peeked in last week with a friend, I was proven wrong. Pity
those who flock to places like the Olive Garden for salty and overpriced
sub-standard Italian dishes. Apertivo’s food not only carries
more breadth and passion than ever before, it’s still a giveaway
bargain with decent-sized plates costing a mere $8 at most.
The restaurant’s menu, wine list and wait staff have expanded,
as well as the space itself. Owners Ken Cassinelli and his wife, Janie,
cut into an adjoining storefront earlier this year, allowing for more
tables, a bigger kitchen and an extra restroom. But in the slothful
city bureaucracy that plagues so many mom-and-pop restaurateurs seeking
booze permits, customers must stick to the original dining area or
back-wall wine bar to drink adult beverages until a license is granted
to serve them throughout the entire room. The night we visited, only
the handful of tables in the “dry side” of the restaurant
remained largely empty.
I had forgotten how much I loved Apertivo’s pasta puttanesca
until twirling my fork again in the mound of spaghetti laced with
capers, black olives, tomatoes and anchovies that are melted into
an olive oil base. Also extraordinary is the Caesar salad of all things
– thanks to a rich, garlicky dressing thickened by wet crumbles
of Parmesan cheese. And the marinara here is bright and basic, an
accurately fast-cooked sauce using basil, garlic, red wine and whole
tomatoes that Cassinelli squishes by hand.
Some of Cassinelli’s recipes originate from his grandmother.
Others stem from an intuitive, charged-up knack for cooking.
“I’m an addict for food and started cooking in the third
grade,” he said. “I grew up watching Julia Child and the
Galloping Gourmet.”
Nothing we ate descended even remotely into the mediocre zone. Prosciutto-wrapped
shrimp, for instance, develops a beautiful sheath of crispiness as
the thinly sliced ham hits the pan of heated olive oil. It’s
a superior rendition of bacon-wrapped shrimp that I’ve had in
other restaurants, where the crustaceans become invariably upstaged
by the bacon’s saltiness. Cassinelli has figured out that subtler
prosciutto is the wiser choice, earning him a recipe mention in Deliciously
Italian, a nationally released cookbook celebrating traditional family
recipes.
Three splendid items we tried from the list of daily specials were
braised leeks in béchamel sauce revealing a whisper of nutmeg.
Rarely do I see leeks on local menus, so their earthy, scallion-like
flavor was a welcome treat. Equally wowing was chunky tenderloin in
a judiciously creamy ragu served over a choice of pasta. The recipe
puts all other meat “sauces” to shame, and I would rally
to see this dish promoted to permanent status on the regular menu
before somebody steals it. Ditto for the Bosc pear poached in Marsala
wine that we had for dessert, appointed in an oh-so-fitting Gorgonzola
cream sauce.
“Nona Serventi’s” homemade ravioli pays tribute
to grandma, who taught Cassinelli the art of making thin sheets of
egg pasta for creating super lightweight casings. Inside was a modest
layering of ricotta and chopped spinach. On top were plops of the
cherry-red marinara that I could eat as soup.
Pliant, warm goat cheese served as the filler for baked eggplant rollotini,
a more exciting choice compared to everyday eggplant Parmesan. Our
manicotti tasted classic, although the tubes were rather heavily mantled
by Mozzarella. And ranking among my favorite dishes was chicken diablo
hiding tender pieces of breast meat in a dark-red sauce of sun-dried
tomatoes and red chili flakes. Here, the sauce is cooked to just the
burning point to add an indirect smoky zing.
Since these are not what I’d call pigmy tapas, we never got
around to ordering lamb shank osso bucco, which I’ve been told
by friends is extraordinary. Nor did we indulge in the turkey meatballs.
I ate those with glee on my initial visit and was happy to see them
still in the offing for only a buck a ball.
Among our lighter choices were marinated baby artichokes imported
from southern Italy. They actually weren’t so petite, but rather
medium-sized bulbous gems with delicate brine permeating their soft,
meaty hearts. Sweet roasted red peppers struck a wholesome match to
the complimentary bread sticks, or you can pair them ideally with
mixed olives, oven-roasted carrots or crimini mushrooms sautéed
in sherry.
Pasta choices abound with about 15 types of sauces and toppings suitable
for marriage to five different cuts of noodles. Chicken, too, comes
in several styles – Parmesan, piccata, marsala or plainly grilled.
The red wines we sampled (some local and others Italian) offered good
complexity and discernible fruit. There are about 60 labels available
by the glass, all affordably priced, along with a few Italian beers.
Much has been said about the noise level when Apertivo fills up. I
wasn’t bothered by it this time around because the din was festive
in a communal “eat, drink and be happy” sense. Service
was speedier and smoother than what I remember. And for the first
time in ages, I came away from a local Italian restaurant that replaces
slapdash slop with veritable heart and soul.
