{"id":958,"date":"2009-11-15T20:12:15","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T02:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=958"},"modified":"2010-05-18T08:38:25","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T14:38:25","slug":"cafe-porta-alba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=958","title":{"rendered":"Cafe Porta Alba"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>

\"cpasign\"<\/p>\n

\"cpaoven\"<\/p>\n

Why is it that we love to eat out?\u00a0 What is it we’re really looking for when we go to a restaurant?\u00a0 It can’t be just the food.\u00a0 I can cook for myself.\u00a0 It can’t be because we don’t have to do the dishes if we eat out (although that’s part of it).\u00a0 It’s not for the conversation; we have the same conversation we would have had if we stayed home (except we might try to sound more posh so anyone overhearing our conversation would think we’re more sophisticated than we are).\u00a0 So why do we go?\u00a0 It’s a question I can answer easily only for a handful of restaurants.\u00a0 Places so special that the more obvious question is: why wouldn’t<\/em> you eat here?\u00a0 Cafe Porta Alba<\/a> (or CPA for short), which was in downtown Madison, before recently relocating to Hilldale, is one of those places.<\/p>\n

Tastes vary wildly.\u00a0 That’s a good thing.\u00a0 Imagine how drab the world would be if we all liked the same movies, read the same books, used the same toothpaste.\u00a0 I have a friend that genuinely thinks that The House Bunny<\/a> was the funniest movie of the decade, whereas I wanted to tear out my eyes and stuff them in my ears to make the movie go away.\u00a0 Hurray for diversity.\u00a0 So I’m not going to try to make you love Cafe Porta Alba.\u00a0 I will tell you why I<\/strong><\/em> love it though.\u00a0 It starts with the food of course.\u00a0 More on that later.\u00a0 It also has a lot to do with the owners, Vincenzo and his wife Stephanie.\u00a0 They are as kind and welcoming as it’s possible to be.\u00a0 It also has something to do with my personal history with the restaurant.\u00a0 I haven’t always been a “food nerd” (I heard Tony Bourdain say this, I prefer it to the loathsome ‘foodie’).\u00a0 Right as I was starting to discover real food (as opposed to the stuff I ate at the time), I ate at CPA for the first time.\u00a0 I’m not sure I knew it at the time, but that period was a turning point for me.\u00a0 I probably would have ended up the way I am anyways even if I never ate at CPA, but I can’t be sure.<\/p>\n

If you’ll bear with a mild digression; two of my favorite writers (Walter Moers and Gene Wolfe) separately talk about a concept that Moers calls the Golden List, and Wolfe calls the Book of Gold.\u00a0 In Moers’ The City of Dreaming Books<\/a>, the books on the Golden List are the rarest of the rare– the most precious and sought after jewels of the literary world.\u00a0 Gene Wolfe’s Book of Gold is a similar, but more personal version of the same concept.\u00a0 Wolfe’s Book of Gold is a book that you come back to time and time again, if only the hold it, to study the cover, to flip through the pages.\u00a0 Something that becomes so familiar to you that it becomes part of who you are.\u00a0 There are books like this, just as there a songs, and places, and food.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

And finally, on to the good part:<\/p>\n

\"decumanipizzaandgnocchi\"<\/p>\n

Pictured above on the left is decumani .\u00a0 Tomato, olives, mushrooms, and cheese layered around the outside of a pizza dough.\u00a0 A cross was cut in the center of the pizza and the flaps were folded over to create a ring.\u00a0 It is then finished off with greens, fresh mozzarella, parmigiano reggiano & balsamic vinegar.\u00a0 This is not on the menu yet, but I think they are planning on having it as a special, once things have settled down.\u00a0 On the right we have gnocchi, which we shared before our pizzas.\u00a0 I guess I’ve never had good gnocchi before because I’ve never been impressed, but this was divine.\u00a0 They were so tender, their texture was almost gelatinous.\u00a0 Not at all the heavy, pasty, dumpling texture of other gnocchi I’ve had.\u00a0 They were drowned in a\u00a0 four cheese sauce (parmesan, mozzarella, ricotta & gorgonzola) and topped with\u00a0raddicchio.\u00a0 The crispness of the cabbage was the perfect counterpoint to\u00a0 the soft, jelly feel of the gnocchi.<\/p>\n

And finally, what you’ve all been waiting for.\u00a0 CPA serves authentic Neapolitan style pizza.\u00a0 If you’re interested in knowing exactly what that is, check out the website for the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana<\/a>, the trade association that certifies restaurants (including CPA) as authentic.\u00a0 You should also check out Jeff Varasano<\/a>‘s website.\u00a0 Jeff is one of the most knowledgeable people on the internet when it comes to Neapolitan pizza.\u00a0 Oh, and he’s also recently started his own pizzeria in Atlanta, GA.\u00a0 If you’re not interested enough to click those links, suffice it to say that this is not typical American pizza.\u00a0 It is not covered in 2 pounds of cheese and toppings.\u00a0 That’s not to say anything bad about American pizza– I love 2 pounds of cheese as much as any other healthy, normal Wisconsinite.\u00a0 Just to say that this<\/strong> is not that<\/em>.\u00a0 The heart and soul of the Neapolitan pizza is the crust.\u00a0 The crust should be chewy (not crisp) with a light char on the bottom.\u00a0 The middle of the pizza should be the thinnest part, and should be slightly soft from the moisture from the cheese and tomato.\u00a0 Everything on top is done with subtlety.\u00a0 Simple tomato sauce, chucks of fresh mozzarella, a few leaves of basil, and a little drizzle of olive oil.\u00a0 Nothing to overpower the texture or flavor of the crust.<\/p>\n

\"cpapizzas\"<\/p>\n

Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise we have pizza margherita con salame (tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil & salami), pizza margherita (same, no salami), pizza napoletana (same with anchovies), and pizza alpina (walnut puree, fontina cheese\u00a0 & mushrooms).<\/p>\n

Neapolitan pizza has been growing in popularity in the US over the last few years.\u00a0 Nowadays there are Neapolitan style pizzerias in most cities and over 30 VPN certified authentic’ places in the country.\u00a0 I imagine that over time more and more will spring up.\u00a0 This may make the food served at Cafe Porta Alba less rare, but it won’t make the experience any less special.<\/p>\n

*By the way, we took a picture of Jesus, the pizzaiolo, in front of the oven.\u00a0 I’d hate to disappoint him by not including it!\u00a0 Especially since he has probably cooked me more dinners than Leslie has.<\/p>\n

\"jesus\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is it that we love to eat out?\u00a0 What is it we’re really looking for when we go to a restaurant?\u00a0 It can’t be just the food.\u00a0 I can cook for myself.\u00a0 It can’t be because we don’t have to do the dishes if we eat out (although that’s part of it).\u00a0 It’s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[61,37,63,62,36],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-if-youre-ever-in","category-restaurants","tag-cafe-porta-alba","tag-italian","tag-madison","tag-pizza","tag-restaurant","no-featured-image"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}