Chef Francesco Torre

Canneti Roadhouse Italiana, Forestville

“Lucky for me, I live just around the corner,” said Francesco Torre, owner and chef of Canneti Roadhouse Italiana in Forestville. And as we talk, it is clear that a part of him also resides in the roadhouse itself. As he shows me around, every object has a story about its journey here. A painting by Formisano that “I bought from him when he was not yet famous. He’s from Sardinia, you know: Sardinians are obsessed with donkeys. [The title of the piece is Simposium of Donkeys’.] In fact, Sardinia is famous for donkey salami, which is actually very good.”

“The building was a disaster [when we arrived],” Torre said of the structure, built in the 1800s with an addition constructed in the 1980s. He added a porch out front, opened up the kitchen, installed the electrical and helped make the tables— including a long table that is probably too heavy to ever leave the premises in one piece.

There is a small fleet of antique motorcycles on display at the front of the dining room. Each bike has been restored by Torre, who has a passion for old things that are thoughtfully made. “I don’t know why, maybe because I feel like an antique myself.”

“I’m tired. But I’m never bored. I have been working hard for a long time. I’m originally from Massa [Italy], which is on the coast close to Genoa. While I studied economics at university, I started cooking in some nice establishments. And they love chocolate, so I started looking into chocolate while I was studying. And things came in just like that. I learned how to cure meat and butcher because I had a girlfriend whose family been butchers since the early 1800s.”

After culinary school and a stint with a country club in the resort town, “I moved to the countryside between Florence and Siena. I worked almost eight years as executive chef at Badia a Coltibuono, a very famous winery in Tuscany, and during those years I also became a level 2 sommelier. I was also certified in truffles. I had to learn how to train a dog [to hunt truffles], which is not as easy as you think. I learned about wine because there is no ‘food and then wine’; there is ‘food and wine together.’”

“The abbey at the winery was built in the year 1000. I taught cooking classes in this building owned by the de Medicis. At Canneti Roadhouse, we cook some of the very traditional dishes, but not too many because Tuscan cooking isn’t very agreeable to most American palates. There’s a lot of liver, a lot of intestines and game. If we had wild hare and a drop of its blood got on the floor, you can clean it with bleach and one week later you still smell it.

“During that time, I had the strange idea of marrying an American, and there was this particular American that was pretty interesting. She was one of my cooking students.” His other American students encouraged Francesco to put his resume on Craigslist so he could find a job and join his girlfriend in the Bay Area.

William “Bill” Foss, co-owner of Sausalito’s sustainable seafood restaurant Fish., reached out. Francesco came to California to visit his girlfriend and met Foss. “I remember the first lunch we had together and I asked if they served monkfish. They looked at me weird. I learned from them [to source] better than I was doing in Italy, because I didn’t know about sourcing or sustainability.

“Fish. is very casual and I was coming from a place with handmade tablecloths. [They served] fish and chips—beautiful fish and chips, but still,” recalls Torre of that initial meeting. So Foss introduced him to Bill Harlan and Bill Higgins, owners of Tra Vigne in Napa, who moved the chef from Italy to help refresh that longtime Wine Country favorite. Ultimately Torre ended up back at Fish.

Torre was at Fish. off and on for eight years, taking time in between stints in the kitchen to explore. “I was also a consultant in Italy for a chain of chateaux. I worked for a New York restaurant group that wanted to open an Italian restaurant. It was extremely difficult to source and they wanted fake prosciutto hanging from the ceiling, so I moved back here.”

“Eventually, Bill [Foss] told me it was time I had my own place. I was already looking for spaces everywhere, except up here [Sonoma County]. So, he started taking me around. I saw this building and I’m, like, ‘What is that?’ But there was nothing in town, everything was closed. A week after, I signed the lease.”

“The concept was basically not to offer lasagna,” says the fiercely authentic Italian chef. “And now I’m going to offer lasagna on ‘locals night,’ just to have fun. The menu here is modern Italian cooking with Tuscan influence. We make everything in house—all our pasta, salumi, we do all our butchering, we bake all our breads, we make all our marmalades.”

The chef states that when he opened Canetti, he began the with the firm intention of achieving a Michelin star. But then he adapted to the rustic flair of the West County setting. “So I went back to the way I was cooking in Italy, a little bit more rustic.”

“It’s funny to think back to my beginnings as a university student in Massa. I applied to [be a chef at] this beautiful beach club and this very tiny lady said, ‘Mr. Torre, can you start now?’ I went back to the car to get my chef coat and started that day. I get into the kitchen and she introduces me to Mr. Frank. He was the tallest man I’ve ever seen. Not just tall, he was also huge. He had a scar from ear to ear—he had fallen on the slicer. I thought he was going to kill me. The third day, the little lady looks at me from the pass and says, ‘Well, Francesco, what do you think of it here?’ I replied, ‘I can work here for the season.’ When she responded ‘Hmm… I was thinking maybe you want to work somewhere else,’ I’m thinking, ‘OK, I’m not good enough.’ ‘No, you’re too good,’ she said.

So he made his way up the hill, to something better.

Edible Marin & Wine Country: What was the first meal you made that you were proud of?

Chef Francesco Torre: I was attending cooking school. I must have been 16 years old. I invited a friend home and I cooked for him spaghetti with tomato sauce. Very basic, but we had just learned how to cook it.

What was your favorite food as a kid?

Russian salad. I remember I was 6 and my father took us to this very high-end restaurant. In order to enter, we had to walk through a small grocery owned by the same family. Unfortunately for my father, I happened to see the Russian salad and, once we were seated at the restaurant, I made a racket because I really wanted it. My father wasn’t very happy!

What food do you wish you loved?

My cat’s food ... life would be so much simpler.

What food do you love unreasonably much?

This is tricky ... I must say a very well done mac & cheese. Any additions on it are welcome. On a trip back from New York I tried it all over the country. The best was at St. Elmo Steak House in Indianapolis, Indiana. After driving 11 hours in terrible weather, I was late for my reservation so I changed in the car. Wearing my fancy suit, I ordered a gigantic porterhouse, creamed spinach and blue crab—topped mac and cheese. The server looked at me like I was crazy, ordering enough for three customers. Of course, I had a bottle of wine ... and a wonderful night.

What is the most difficult cooking technique to do well?

I have no idea. Probably cooking well while keeping it simple. These new chefs without any classic training put together dishes that make no sense. All is done for the sake of impressing the guests and to be creative and different.

What are you exploring in your kitchen now?

Two things mainly:

— Training people that have never cooked and giving them a solid base and passion. My sous chef started as a dishwasher and he is the best sous I have ever had.

— To revise the American concept of Italian cooking, which seems to be focused on fried calamari, Caesar salad (“add all white meat chicken for $2.99”) and lasagna, in a disgusting pool of stomach-destroying tomato sauce. At Canneti, we use quail, guinea hens, wild boar, rabbit and so on.

What nonculinary influence inspires you?

Antiques, especially books and motorcycles. I collect and restore both. I find it fascinating that humans were essential to the production of vintage items like leather seats, Bakelite (instead of vulgar plastic), the twine book binding (instead of glue, which lasts few years and then the books simply fall apart). Cooking works the same way. Simple, made from scratch, with excellent ingredients and with a solid classic base that can be changed into something new. No extravagance.

What is your idea of a very healthy meal?

Spaghetti carbonara, ravioli and lamb in sauce. Jokes aside, I do believe everything can be healthy if taken in the right quantities. The most important thing is quality and artisanal cooking. Source local and directly from farms.

What is your favorite ingredient?

I am a simple person, so I like simple ingredients. I like flour. It comes in many flavors and from many grains, it is very ductile, and it can be shaped in many forms. Comfort foods.

What is your favorite hangover meal?

Risotto and gnocchi. I can bathe my face in a place of either or both.

What restaurant in the world are you most dying to try?

Don Alfonso 1890, in Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi, outside Naples. My admiration for chef-proprietor Alfonso Iaccarino can’t be measured. While all the rest of the 3-Michelin-starred restaurant owners participate in TV shows, he won’t move from his kitchen. Guests are attending his establishment because of him, and so there he must be. Fantastic.