The 2006 Winter Games in Turin shone a considerable spotlight on an unfamiliar part of Italy – unfamiliar to many Americans, anyway. But not to Blair Taylor, owner of Barolo Grill.
Here’s how these points are related: Barolo, like Turin, is in Italy’s Piedmont region. Turin (Torino in Italian) is the capital, and Barolo is 35 miles south. Barolo, the Denver restaurant, is named for the town Taylor fell in love with several years ago – so much so that he not only named his restaurant after it, he returns annually and serves food from the region. (Some will recognize the name Barolo and associate it with one of the finest, oldest Italian wines; but that’s for another time.)
To get some sense of why Barolo and the Piedmont are so special, we asked Taylor about his love affair with the town.
Where did your restaurant’s name come from?
In the late ’80s, while on a trip to France, someone told me about this little town on the other side of the Alps called Barolo. So we made a reservation at a recommended restaurant, drove over and arrived just in time for dinner. Everyone was having the same nine-
course meal with wine. I fell in love with the area and the purity of the food. It was one of those “Eureka!” moments when the clouds parted, the sun shone and I knew what I was going to name my Italian restaurant.
Where is the Piedmont?
It’s in the most northwest zone of Italy. Torino is the capital. It’s bordered on the west by France, but mostly it borders Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia on the north. It stops on the east before you get to Milan, which is the next province. To the south there are the Ligurian mountains and the region stops before the Mediterranean, so it’s completely landlocked. So you get French-influenced Italian food just as in the south of France you’re eating Italian-influenced French food.
What are some foods from this region that Americans would recognize?
Risotto is probably the most famous. And there’s agnolotti (pronounced “an-ya-la-tee”), a crescent-shaped stuffed pasta; or the classic appetizer, vitello tonnato, made with veal, anchovies, capers, lemon and sage; frito misto, (a kind of Italian version of tempura) which can be made with vegetables, seafood or meat. This also an area where meat is braised, so you would find brazzato al Barolo, beef braised in Barolo wine. There are a lot of veal dishes and fonduta, a cheese sauce made with fontina and egg yolks that’s served over vegetables.
There are also a lot of what they call “forest berries,” blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. The Piedmont is also famous for hazelnuts and chocolate. Alba, the biggest commercial area next to Barolo, is considered the white truffle capital of Italy.
Are there seasonal variations of Piedmont foods?
In the summer people get fresh produce daily from the market, so you get things as they come into season. Mushrooms are very popular, so when they are in season, you see porcinis in a lot of dishes. A typical dinner would be a little pasta, some vegetables or mushrooms cooked in olive oil.
How many of these recipes do you prepare at Barolo?
Brian Laird, our executive chef, does very authentic Piedmontese cooking. We’ve been taking our staff – waiters, chefs and managers – to Italy for the past 11 years. They pay their air fare, we pay the rest. We close the restaurant down for two weeks and go learn about everything in the region. This year for the first time, my wife and I are closing for the first two weeks in April because of the big wine fair in Verona. All 5,000 wineries come to show their new releases for the year.
How does the food of the Piedmont compare to other regions?
I think Piedmont cooking is one of the secret gems of all European cooking. It is magical. People tend to miss it because they’re busy dashing from Milan to Tuscany, but Europeans know the area very well. Just as we’d drive to Santa Fe, people from Austria, Switzerland and Germany drive to Torino and Barolo.
Staff writer Ellen Sweets can be reached at 303-820-1284 or esweets@denverpost.com.
Barolo Grill,
3030 E. Sixth Ave. (303-393-1040), has extended its Olympic celebration through Saturday. The four-course meal for two, $65, includes gorgonzola soufflé with hazelnut honey, tagliolini pasta with sage brown butter sauce, brasato of beef in Barolo wine, and panna cotta with fresh fruit sauce.
The restaurant is open 5:30- 10:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. It will be closed April 2-12.
