Enzo Fargione

Just a quick note to say that the 2009 OA Dining Survey for the U.S. & Europe can be downloaded at the link below:

2009 OA U.S., & European Downloads

Steve,

Thank you for your list

Chef Enzo Fargione

Teatro Goldoni

Chef Table @ Teatro Goldoni

That's Robert Goulet but thank you for the compliment!

Joe is the ultimate Gentleman.

I have met him just about 3 years ago between a cigar, a pizza and a losing full house........

I have always admired his passion and his way to be intensely engaged while talking about food at any level

Joe respects and admire hard work, excellence and the purity of food making and the food industry.

He deserves all the attention and the admiration not only of the Post, but mostly ours

Thank you Joe!! You are an outstanding example of what food passion is.

And Thank you Don for giving us the perfect tool to interact and express ourselves, share ideas and speak our minds

Chef Enzo Fargione

Teatro Goldoni Restaurant

Chef, do you think that mockery will make NolaCaine want to try your restaurant again? It certainly makes me think twice about it - especially if I have the temerity to express my dislike for something there on a public forum dedicated to people's opinions about their dining experiences.

Mockery? I would call it sarcasm...that is who I am.......and NOla Caine is mostly welcome to come back to Teatro and I will personally greet the person and make sure will have a positive experience

After all this is a forum where you can express yourself.

I respect, but not necessarily agree with everything that people say. I accept it ........can you?

Thanks for your imput

Chef Enzo

"What a friend we have in Jesus..."

-- Jesus.

"Jesus."

-- DonRocks.

Heheheheh....... Don what is it about you that always makes me smile?

You Rock!!!

Enzo

WOW!!!!

What a day!!!!!

I had friends, family and collegues texting me and calling me about this.........Berlusconi sent me a letter and the Pope his blessing, the Bertolli company wants me for its new ad campaing and the Italian Consorzio are now giving me a Laurea with honors

I wonder what it would have happened if indeed some olive oil was spilled on someone suit?

Let me make this easy for everyone:

1- Thanks to those who love and support the new Teatro Goldoni

2- I will instruct my servers to drizzle just a little bit of evoo on the fish they filet regardless if for Lunch or Dinner from now on

3- The chef table is a unique experience, a very personal one and cannot be compared to the restaurant itself

4- The restaurant for the past 12 months went through incredible changes and by doing so you please and disappoint

5- I would incourage those who like their meal customized to voice their requests before ordering as we do try to make everyone happy

6- For those who like to pass judgement about my work I say thank you for the constructive criticism, but do me a favor: you need to come in and have a

meal before you voice your opinion

7- I can only say this: The chef table has hardly been reviewed by newspapers or the media, but the restaurant has in positive ways. We remain humble and

very attentive about the quality and value of every meal that goes out to the dining room and I pride myself by doing so

8- The restaurant business is one of the hardest business out there and especially now with the current state of the economy. We are also humans

and we can make occasional mistakes, but please if they happen gently point them out to us and give us a chance to put a smile back on your

face because we, like you have expectations and bad days

Thank you for all your support and as for NOLA CAINE.........well, sorry if few extra drops of olive oil will refrain you to explore better and future experiences at my restaurant or at the chef table: I was not aware untill now how difficult the olive oil free life is and I remain hopeful that in time you would be so kind and couragious to give us another try in our new carefully measured olive oil drizzled environment.

After all the last thing I aim for is to create an absolute horror experience for my guests and friends

Chef Enzo Fargione

Dear All:

First, please forgive me as I forget sometimes that humor does not translate well in e-mail/blogging/ or on listserves.

Yes, “absolute horror” and “incident to report” were both meant to obvious and sarcastic overreactions.

I trust good restaurants to give me food as they intend for me to eat it. It looked like too much EVOO was poured on my fish, but I kept an open mind and tried it.

The server was too far away for me to stop the EVOO dribble without shouting. A bit of a dribble would have been fine as I like a nice EVOO dribble on my red beans and rice. I also use EVOO while I cook fish, at home, without my suit on. Again, an attempt at humor. I am not so experienced with deboning a fish, at table, thus am likely to get some on me.

As for restaurant selection, I selected this restaurant based on these reviews of the Chef’s table and that was a mistake because I wanted to enjoy lunch? I think that if a Chef’s table is one of the best in this city, then lunch should be at least GOOD.

I am disinclined to go to a chef’s table if I cannot get a decent lunch at a place. K street is a lunch sort of street, is it not?

Finally, is it worth another shot for lunch or dinner or is the only thing worth eating here, the Chef’s Table?

Thanks.

What a disappointment. After reading the posts, my party of six showed up on Saturday night expecting to be blown away. There was barely a breeze.

The first thing someone should mention is that this is one of the most expensive restaurants in town. $15-20 apps, $30-45 pastas, $40-50 entrees, $13-20 desserts. I am perfectly happy to spend on food - I've never regretted the tab at Citronelle, Komi, CityZen, Eve, and lots of others, but it does up the ante. If you are going to charge those kind of prices, it had better show up on the plate, the atmosphere, somewhere...

Two of our party started with the minestrone soup, which contained an elaborate menu description including that the broth is poured from a coffee pot. What it doesn't mention is that the broth is watery and the only thing that gives the soup flavor are the fried onions floating on top. Another person had the seafood cones, which were delicious. Two others had pedestrian salads. I had the pea cappucino, which was very nice but hardly memorable. For entrees, the spinach-ricoota ravioli with runny egg yolk was really good, the lamb shank and fish (tuna?) were fine but dull (the big block of spinach polenta that came with the fish wasn't good at all), and the lobster risotto was fine but didn't have much lobster for the $44 price tag. Caramel and chocolate gelato for dessert, both solid singles.

Overall, the evenng left me dazed and confused. Is this the same place others rave about? Did we order wrong (except for the seafood cones and the revioli)? Is the chef's table that different than the regular menu? Did they jack up the prices for Inauguration weekend? I'd love to know.

Dear Pork Belly,

I am very sorry you had such a negative experience at my restaurant.

I indeed value your opinion and I thank you for your comments: I will try harder to please every single guest of mine

It seems to me you had a poor night and though I don't think you had ordered the wrong items, maybe the menu per se was not detailed enough in its descriptions: the minestrone soup is supposed to be liquid for many reason and the puree of cannellini beans, once stirred with the soup would have given it the right consistency and texture. Yes , against my personal will the prices were marked a little higher for 3 days of the Inauguration period. For that I can only apologize.

For the quality of the food, maybe you just did not like it or you were expecting something different.

It seems like you had the opportunity to taste every single dish your party ordered. So I am not sure with what intent you had decided to have dinner with us.

My mission is to make every single guests of mine happy and satisfied and it saddens me if they walk out of Teatro with a bad experience.

I do value your opinion and I hope you would be gracious and brave enough to come and see me at Teatro and I will be mostly happy to make sure that your previous experience would turn into a bad memory only

Thank you very much Pork Belly for your point of view and I remain hopeful to finally meet you when and if you will give me the chance to prove you what we really do here at Teatro Goldoni

Chef Enzo Fargione

Ten of us shared Enzo's Chef's Table last night. I agree with Don: this may be D. C.'s best dining experience right now. At least two dishes (egg shell with head of shrimp sticking out, green pea with foie gras soup and fried leeks) compete for what I believe is the current single best dish in the D. C. area. Truly an extraordinary experience that I salute and applaud Enzo for introducing D. C. to.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the friends and guests who had the chance to dine with me at my chef table

I truly appreciate all of your comments, kind words and support

Mostly, it is great to see so many friends of DonRockwell.com taking the chance to try something new at Teatro and be surprised with the results. It is always nice when people understand the hard work that lies behind a 3 hours dining show

To all of you a wonderful "Happy holidays" with the promise that I would work harder in the new year trying to leave a mark and to surprise you more and more with new altrnatives at the chef table.

For some of you who might be curious to know what we serve and offer, here is a typical menu for the chef table........of course it varies all the time with no notice.

This is a dinner not just for somebody, but for everybody............

Appetite openers:

Deconstructed Sicilian green olives

Gorgonzola pannacotta wrapped in Parma prosciutto and black pepper

Anise dusted seared tuna lollipops

Cornets of vinegar cured salmon belly with crispy fennel and California Osetra caviar

Solid spicy bloody mary on a spoon with candied celery

Mix shellfish broth in an eggshell with basil gelatin infusion

Menu:

4 minutes smoked Branzino carpaccio in a cigar box

Cold Stone style veal filet carpaccio on a marble slab with cornet condiments and black truffles

Green pea cappuccino in an espresso cup with brule`fois gras custard and crispy leeks

Wet/dry instant minestrone soup in a coffee press pot and pesto broth

Lobster risotto with cherry tomatoes confit served in a caviar tin and crispy basil and artichoke chips

Red beets pasta fagottini filled with fonduta cheese and running quail egg asparagus puree` black truffles parmesan shaves

Yukon potato gnocchi in roasted artichoke hearts ragu` braised veal cheeks in port wine and Castelrosso cheese "air"

Two colors miniature open raviolo filled with porcini ragu` creamy robiola cheese sage foam and white truffles

Baked chilean sea bass with 3 fennels and a saffron broth with solid extra virgin olive oil

Salt cured Moularde duck breast and a cube of chestnut puree`braised quince crispy spinach and balsamic chocolate sauce

Pre dessert bites

A study of chocolate and its dusts with chocolate sorbet

Panettone and warm chocolate/ pistachio cider sauce with Christmas ornaments

Cigar on an ashtray with lit spun sugar smoke