Tag Archives: pan pizza

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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Dining Outside at Bookie’s Pizza

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The unique 'nduja, pineapple and anchovy Detroit-style pizza at Bookie's.
The unique ‘nduja, pineapple and anchovy Detroit-style pizza at Bookie’s.

When a fine-dining chef who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and worked at Michelin three-starred Manresa pivots to making pizza, you know those pies are going to be damn fine.

And at Bookie’s Pizza in Santa Cruz, they absolutely slay.

Tucked inside Sante Adairius Rustic Ales tasting room at 1315 Water St. in Santa Cruz, Chef Todd Parker has set up shop, turning out Detroit-style pizzas with California farm-to-table panache.

Parker was the chef at Manresa Bread’s Campbell location when it first opened, which is where I first met him. The plan was for him to become the head chef at sister business, Mentone, when it was to open in Aptos.

Chef Todd Parker.
Chef Todd Parker.

But the pandemic had different ideas, delaying the debut of the pizza-centric Mentone, and leaving Parker to contemplate what the near future held.

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