Category Archives: Pizza

Gourmet Getaway to the Mendocino Region, Part IV: The Boonville Hotel and Offspring Restaurant

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Sun Gold tomato Margherita pizza at Offspring.
Sun Gold tomato Margherita pizza at Offspring.

Offspring is a fitting name for Chef Perry Hoffman’s second restaurant, an inviting pizza and pasta joint in teeny Boonville in the Anderson Valley.

After all, it was the success of the Boonville Hotel and Restaurant across the street, where he’s also chef, that gave birth to it.

Yet it’s also a name that applies profoundly to him, too, as this descendant of veritable culinary royalty knows a thing or two about the creating a lasting legacy.

Chef Perry Hoffman.
Chef Perry Hoffman.

His grandparents were famously, Don and Sally Schmitt, who bought an old stone building in sleepy Yountville in 1978, the French Laundry. They worked hard to turn it into a true destination, a process Hoffman witnessed from the time he was 5 years old when he’d roast peppers and cut baguettes to help out at the restaurant. It was the tender start to his own storied career that culminated in becoming the youngest chef in the United States to receive a Michelin star when he was 25 at the helm of Domaine Chandon’s Etoile restaurant in Yountville in 2009.

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Redwood City’s Donato Enoteca Reopens After Renovation

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Several types of pizza are offered on Donato Enoteca's new menu, including this pan pizza topped with house-smoked swordfish.
Several types of pizza are offered on Donato Enoteca’s new menu, including this pan pizza topped with house-smoked swordfish.

After a month-long interior refresh, the popular 16-year-old Italian restaurant Donato Enoteca has reopened in Redwood City — better than ever.

There’s still a large patio dining area with herb planters, an open kitchen, and a handsome dining room but one that’s brighter and more contemporary looking now. There’s also a new circular white marble bar, especially conducive to the after-work crowd looking to kick back with cocktails and small cicchetti or bite-sized noshes. There are also new evocative black-and-white photos on the walls of Italian ingredients by local photographer Nadia Andreini.

The biggest change, though, is the arrival of Chef Marco Bertoldo, a native of Italy’s Veneto region, who has worked at Michelin three-starred Ristorante Le Calandre in Italy and was the executive chef at Poesia in San Francisco.

Through the passway to the marble-topped bar.
Through the passway to the marble-topped bar.
New artwork on the walls.
New artwork on the walls.

Chef-Owner Donato Scotti may be stepping back from overseeing the kitchen on a day-to-day basis, but he’s still very much a part of the restaurant. In fact, he was there last week greeting tables, when I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant.

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Square Pie Guys Debuts in the South Bay

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The Mush-O-Roni at Square Pie Guys in Campbell.
The Mush-O-Roni at Square Pie Guys in Campbell.

Come for the thick-crust pizza. But stay to savor the Szechuan wings. In fact, you just might want a second order of those.

Square Pie Guys, which debuted in San Francisco six years ago, just opened its first South Bay locale — in Campbell.

It specializes in Detroit-style pizza from the Motor City, which was appropriately enough originally baked in industrial car parts tray.

The name may be a bit of misnomer — as the pizzas are baked in deep rectangular pans, not square ones — but the results are incredibly crisp perimeters and corners with the lacy, baked-on cheese we all fight over.

Last week, I was invited in as a guest of the bright, airy restaurant, where the friendly employees were making a point to greet each table.

You know you're in the right place.
You know you’re in the right place.
The decor is simple but with fun touches.
The decor is simple but with fun touches.

You order at the counter, then take your number to your table, where a server will deliver the goods when ready.

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Johnny & Sanny’s Is the Latest Addition to Downtown Mountain View

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Octopus carpaccio at Johnny & Sanny's.
Octopus carpaccio at Johnny & Sanny’s.

If there was any positive to come out of the pandemic, it was the closure of Mountain View’s Castro Street to traffic. Instead of cars and motorcycles rumbling by, there are now cornhole games, a ping-pong table, and even mini putting green holes set up in what has grown into a veritable pedestrian playground with adults and kids alike.

Restaurants that line both sides seem even livelier now. One of the buzziest is Doppio Zero, with diners filling every sidewalk table. No wonder the founders of this mini Bay Area chain, Gianni “Johnny” Chiloiro and Angelo “Sanny” Sannino were inspired to open another restaurant just a few doors away.

Appropriately named Johnny & Sanny’s after its owners, it opened in May. Chef de Cuisine Santiago Avila Gonzalez and Corporate Chef Antonio Inguscio helm the kitchen of this establishment dedicated to Italian-American cuisine.

The front of the restaurant can be opened up completely to the sidewalk.
The front of the restaurant can be opened up completely to the sidewalk.

A couple weeks ago, I had a chance to check out the new restaurant when I was invited in as a guest.

The whole front of the restaurant opens up onto the sidewalk, making dining here seem even more festive.

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Japan Eats, Part I: Savoy Pizza

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Seared sushi-grade tuna atop one fantastic pizza at Savoy in Tokyo.
Seared sushi-grade tuna atop one fantastic pizza at Savoy in Tokyo.

Tokyo, JAPAN — I just spent two weeks in Japan, my first time there, in what can only be described as an eating adventure of a lifetime.

Scan my Instagram or Facebook pages, and you’ll get a taste through photos and words of all the fine tempura, sushi, tonkatsu, ramen, pastries, and other specialties I thoroughly enjoyed at a pittance, given the very favorable exchange rate of the U.S. dollar to the Japanese yen. Today and Friday, I’ll spotlight two very different restaurants worthy of particular mention.

Though I did online research, and solicited recommendations from friends and chefs who travel to Japan regularly, I don’t think it’s possible to go wrong eating pretty much anywhere in Japan, even if all you do is wing it when you’re there.

Head here when you want to try pizza in Japan.
Head here when you want to try pizza in Japan.

Even eating tiramisu or flan or crustless egg salad sandwiches from a convenience store there is a revelation. Each of those items is less than $2 U.S. at a 7-Eleven or other Japanese convenience store — and the quality just phenomenal.

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