Photography by ARCE PHOTOGRAPHY
It’s Friday night in Il Paesano, and it’s family night. At a large table in the small front room, an extended family celebrates a birthday meal with food that keeps on coming. In the packed main dining room, Paola and Vergilio Peixoto greet familiar faces and go over new menu items. Their teenage daughters, both students at nearby Cardinal Gibbons High School, help out with the busy night as well. That’s good as, even with a packed house, Vergilio can’t help but stop for a quick chat with one regular customer or an inquiry about how the special is with another. Meanwhile Paola walks patrons through the particulars of whichever dish they’re wondering about with the knowledge of someone who could have a PhD in this menu.
Sure, it’s family because the whole family frequently works here. But walk around for
a moment and listen in to the conversations and you quickly become aware – this is a family place because once the Peixotos know you, you’re a kind of family too.
Blink and you could miss Il Paesano – full name Il Paesano Italian Gourmet Food Cafe,
Deli and Wine Market – a little spot on Oakland Park Boulevard, just east of Target. On one wall sit shelves of grocery items imported from Italy – brands of pasta you won’t find in any grocery store, olive oils, that Italian Nutella that just tastes different somehow, etc.
There are food display counters to the back and beyond that, the wine room. There are a few Italian-destination travel posters and other décor, but with shelves of food and other things taking up so much room, there’s not much space for adornment. It’s not a sweeping-vistas-of-Italy sort of Italian restaurant, it’s more of a dining room off a kitchen in a home.
“We don’t want you to come to a picture,” Vergilio says. “We want you to come to the real thing.”
And Paola’s food? That’s the real thing. Paola’s family has been on the move for two generations; she grew up in South Africa, the daughter of Italian immigrants. Italian was spoken at home, and Italian food was consumed. Every summer she would go to Italy
– “home,” she calls it in conversation – to live with relatives. (Vergilio is a South African with Portuguese roots.)
The business, which has been open almost a decade, grew organically. When the Peixotos first moved to Fort Lauderdale from South Africa, they found it hard to settle in. They first took over just the front part of their current space and started selling coffee and little biscotti-type treats. Eventually they thought, you know, we could have a deli here. Then Paola started thinking about an actual kitchen.
Likewise, the food available in the shop section came about organically – specifically, Italian products Paola wanted and couldn’t find in the US.
“When I came here and things weren’t available, I felt I had to have them,” she says.
Vergilio says they’re not trying to be price leaders or run a grocery store.
“I can’t compete with Publix and I don’t want to compete with Publix,” he says. “Does
it cost more? Sure. But quality things do.”
That said, Il Paesano’s food menu is not too pricey. It’s also not massive and includes few dishes that a fairly well-versed Italian food fan won’t know. But it’s not about some startling new dish; it’s about quality, about old recipes, about good food done the right way.
Surviving the pandemic was hard, and they admit that running a small, family-owned restaurant is not easy in the world of big-budget chains. But on a Friday night full of familiar faces lingering for dessert and coffee, Vergilio stops for a moment and smiles. This is what’s worth it.
The Dish: Veal Ossobuco Ravioli
Ingredients:
For pasta filling:
- 1 kg beef ossobuco
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 onion (diced)
- 1 carrot (diced)
- 1 celery stick (diced)
- 300ml white wine
- 1.5 liters beef stock
- 1 sprig of thyme
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 1 sprig of sage
- 1 sprig of bay leaf
- 1 tbsp. tomato puree
- Salt and pepper for seasoning to taste
- 1 tbsp. breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- ½ tbsp. fresh sage (finely chopped)
For ravioli:
- 250g strong white flour
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tsp. salt
Method:
Preheat oven to 200°C. In ovenproof saucepan, heat oil over moderate heat. Prep ossobuco for frying by lightly seasoning and flouring it. Fry for 2 minutes per side. Remove from pan and add in onion, celery and carrot, sautéing for 5 minutes until softened. Add white wine and let simmer for 5 minutes on turned-up heat to reduce and thicken. Add tomato puree and stir well before adding ossobuco to pan with stock, thyme, rosemary and bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Turn off heat and cover pan with a lid before placing in oven. Cook for 2 hours, reducing the heat after 1 hour to 160°C.
Allow to cool for 30 minutes and remove meat and herbs. Gently remove the marrow from the bone and add to a food processor; add meat too (discard fat). Add in half the
vegetables from sauce. Bind with the egg, breadcrumbs and fresh sage. Pulse into a coarse paste (adding a spoonful of sauce to thin or breadcrumbs to thicken). Add seasoning if lacking. Place in large bowl, cover and set aside to cool.
Whiz 500ml of meat sauce and remaining vegetables together in food processor. Sieve and cover to cool.
Bind flour, salt and eggs well together into dough. Knead for 5 minutes then cover in plastic wrap for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 4 parts and use pasta machine to roll it out into long, thin strips (reduce thickness setting as you go to level 3). Otherwise, use a rolling pin (1.5mm thickness). Flour each side to avoid sticking. Flour work surface and lay out one sheet of pasta; place walnut-sized balls of filling evenly over the pasta. Leave enough space between each to cut into individuals. Brush water around meatballs. Lay another pasta sheet over and carefully press the pasta together (around filling). Use a 60mm ravioli cutter around the filling and press edges together to seal. Arrange on a floured tray. Repeat with remaining pasta.
Boil a pot of salted water. Drop in ravioli (not too many at once); cook for 4 to 5 minutes.
Heat a large frying pan and add a couple of ladlefuls of the reserved meat sauce. Let it bubble before dropping in ravioli; add some cooking liquid. Shake the pan to coat ravioli for 1 to 2 minutes. Top with freshly grated Parmesan, stir gently and serve.
(An extra sprinkling of Parmesan and fresh black pepper is optional for serving.)
