This morning finds Michael Bauer “guilty and saddened” over the New Year’s closing of long-established Pac Heights gastronomia, Vivande Porta Via. “Guilty,” he writes, “because like many others, I had abandoned this 29-year-old restaurant for other nearby Italian places such as SPQR and Pizzeria Delfina. We’re a fickle population, always in search of what’s new, and at times we forget the tried-and-true.” He credits Vivande chef Carlo Middione—who, tragically, is quitting the business because a 2007 accident left him without a sense of taste or smell—with doing the pioneering work of bringing rustic Southern Italian cuisine to the Bay Area in the early ‘80s, when few were doing it well. “Without him we might not have had restaurants such as Delfina, A16, or Flour + Water.”
See the full press release from Lisa Middione over at Eater, and you may also want to make note of Middione’s recipe for Fusilli alla Carlo, which was a runner-up in the Chron’s survey of their best published recipes, from the 20th anniversary of the paper’s food section.
Vivande Porta Via: Goodbye to an old friend [Between Meals]
Vivande Bows Out After Nearly 30 Years [Eater]
