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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Wake Up and Smell the Coffee — On Fish

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Dinner is ready in a flash with grilled branzino coated in a delectable coffee rub.
Dinner is ready in a flash with grilled branzino coated in a delectable coffee rub.

When it comes to coffee, I am a one-cup-in-the-morning kind of gal.

Oh sure, there’s the occasional scoop of coffee ice cream or espresso-flavored tiramisu at the end of the evening. And even maybe some coffee-infused barbecue sauce now and then on smoked pork or chicken.

But coffee on fish?

Say what?

Having tried it now, I swear by it.

By happenstance, I came across a recipe in the New York Times for “Coffee-Rubbed Grilled Fish” when I was planning to grill a couple of branzino for dinner.

Coffee on fish? You bet!
Coffee on fish? You bet!

It’s a recipe from Oregon home-cook Rashad Frazier that was adapted by cookbook author and food writer Nicole Taylor. It was pegged as a Kwanzaa dish, but it will turn any day you serve it into a celebration.

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Spice Up Your Day — Everiday

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Everiday Garlic Chili Oil revs up a grilled cheese.
Everiday Garlic Chili Oil revs up a grilled cheese.

If you’ve jumped on the Asian chili sauce bandwagon — and who hasn’t at this point? — you’ll want to add another label to your arsenal.

Everiday Foods serves up a line of four different Asian chili sauces, each with a slightly different taste profile, and enough heat to really jolt the palate yet not incinerate it.

The Singapore company was founded by Riyana Rupani, who gave up a career in corporate finance to become a certified nutritionist after experiencing her own autoimmune issues.

With her quest for clean eating, the sauces are all made with extra-virgin olive oil, as well as additions including pitted dates, garlic, dried chili, and other seasonings,. They all are also vegan, and gluten-free.

Four varieties.
Four varieties.

I had an opportunity to try samples of the Garlic Chili Oil, Mala Chili Crisp, House Red Chili Sauce, and Sambal.

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A Lazy Way — And A Good Way with Tomatoes

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There's a time and place for stuffed tomatoes. And there's an even greater time for "unstuffed'' ones.
There’s a time and place for stuffed tomatoes. And there’s an even greater time for “unstuffed” ones.

There are times when I am up for a challenge, for those recipes that are as long as a chapter in a novel, made with ingredients that take me four trips to as many different grocery stores, and that leave me spent but gratified when I sit down at the table to enjoy them.

Granted, those times are rare.

More likely, as with so many of you, I gravitate to recipes that are not only quick and easy, but let’s face it, take the lazy approach.

Because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

For example, I’ve made Julia Child’s classic “Stuffed Tomatoes Provencal,” and they were fantastic.

But when I came across Laura Vitale’s “Baked ‘Unstuffed’ Tomatoes,” the loafer in me immediately latched on to it.

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Meyhouse Adds Prix Fixe Lunch — and Plans for Expansion

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Braised artichoke with poached shrimp, one of the meze choices on the new prix fixe lunch menu at Meyhouse.
Braised artichoke with poached shrimp, one of the meze choices on the new prix fixe lunch menu at Meyhouse.

It’s been a remarkable journey in short order for Executive Chef-Partner Omer Artun and co-owner Koray Altinsoy who started Meyhouse as a weekend pop-up in 2017, then opened a brick-and-mortar in downtown Sunnyvale in 2018, followed by a splashy downtown Palo Alto location in 2023.

Last week, they started renovations on a third location to serve their patented modern Turkish cuisine, this one in City Center Bishop Ranch in San Ramon. It will be slightly larger than the Palo Alto restaurant. But like that one, it will also feature live jazz regularly. If all goes according to plan, the San Ramon outpost will open its doors in November, Artun said. He’s not stopping there, either, as more locations may be on the way in the future.

What’s even more impressive is that this is not only the second career for Artun and Altinsoy, but one that they had never worked in previously. Altinsoy is a tech marketing executive while Artun has a background in software and physics. As someone who has always loved food and cooking, Artun decided to embark on this next chapter after he sold his IT company.

There's outdoor seating, too.
There’s outdoor seating, too.
The dining room.
The dining room.
A peek at the grill area in the kitchen.
A peek at the grill area in the kitchen.

To say that Meyhouse is a very personal project for him is an understatement.

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