LA BALENA
A California
restaurant with a Tuscan heart
Photo by Geneva
Liimatta
Carmel’s budding
community of young, creative and sustainability minded restaurateurs has just
expanded with the addition of Anna and Emanuele Bartolini and their La Balena,
an informal nod to Northern Italy on Junipero Street between Fifth and Sixth.
The Bartolinis had been
tossing around the idea of opening a restaurant for more than a decade.
Emanuele’s grandparents, who were originally from Sardinia, had a restaurant in
Florence years ago, and after emigrating from Italy to New York, Emanuele
started work in the city’s restaurant world before he even knew English. By the
time he left New York to move to Carmel, he was working as a senior manager at
Del Posto, which is owned jointly by Mario Batali and Lidia and Joseph
Bastianich and is one of the most highly regarded Italian restaurants in New
York. In Carmel, he was most recently a general manager at Cantinetta Luca and
helped open Salumeria Luca.
For Anna, a designer,
opening La Balena—and getting to know the local farmers and other purveyors who
will become a part of it— feeds a passion for supporting young people who farm
and care about food the way that she does.
Anna and Emanuele strive
to uphold the idea that food and wine taste better when served near where they
are grown and when produced with ethical standards.
La Balena’s menu will be
simple, seasonal and sourced from local organic suppliers as much as possible
while remaining faithful to true Italian—and particularly Tuscan—cuisine.
The restaurant will have
two chefs. Chef Salvatore Panzuto— who obtained a culinary degree from Naples’
Instituto Professionale Alberghiero di Stato—will prepare traditional, rustic
food with the spirit of a classic Italian enoteca, or wine bar.
La Balena’s other chef
will be Brad Briske, who is best known in the area for his turns as chef at
Main Street Garden and Gabriella Café in Santa Cruz County as well as his
farm-to-table meals. Briske, who most recently was hired by Carmel’s Casanova
to take over their charcuterie program, will bring to La Balena his deep relationships
with local organic farms and his creative style in cooking their bounty. Briske
and the Bartolinis first met at Live Earth Farm in October, when Briske cooked
a sensational dinner for Edible Monterey Bay’s 1st anniversary.
As this issue of Edible
Monterey Bay went to press, the Bartolinis were planning for a late November
opening and still working on the restaurant’s interior. But already, the former
location of the Carmel Food Co. was showing plenty of character—and was
reflecting the style and interests of its owners.
In evidence of the
Bartolinis’ intent to run their business in as sustainable a manner as
possible, the tables in the main dining room are made from reclaimed tropical
hardwoods that were salvaged from trans-Pacific shipping crates. The cushioned
wooden bench seating came from the local Habitat for Humanity store; the
Bartolinis have refinished and re-upholstered them in two shades of coffee—one
in the color of espresso and the other, caffè latte.
Hand-marbled papers,
vintage postcards and posters, and some artwork that they collected during
their time in Florence and its environs lend an authentic air to the space.
One of the pieces is the
whale’s tail seen in the couple’s logo, which is by Florentine artist, Maurizio
Bomberini. The restaurant’s name was inspired partly by the work, and partly by
Emanuele’s deep passion for whale conservation.
Opening the restaurant
and settling in Carmel are something of a homecoming for Anna, who as a child
would travel from her home in Georgia to visit her grandmother’s first cousin,
a Carmel resident, and could only dream of one day living here.
Camilla Mann is a food
writer, photographer, adventurer and passionate cook based in Monterey.
La Balena • Junipero
Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, Carmel • 831.250.6295 •
www.labalenacarmel.com.
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