Working on the wood stove. Jackie Mercandetti Photo In 2018, almost a year after Claudio Urciuoli opened Pa’La on 24th Street, it was named Best New Restaurant by the Phoenix New Times. It was a bit of a surprise. The place lives in a bungalow older than color TV. His cooks are pretty much limited to wood-burning heat sources. What made Pa’La stand out was the combination of its radical simplicity – the prevailing approach in Urciuoli’s homeland, Italy – with the chef’s network of obscure elite suppliers in Italy, Europe and the US to shine, and Urciuoli goes crazy Procurement and payment for it. In the first Pa’La, Urciuoli serves a tapas plate of rye bread, bacon and aged cheese – an appetizer that requires less assembly than a lunch box of ham and cheese. He made a steak sandwich that is little more than steak and fresh bread. Each ingredient always felt essential, visible, completely in itself. “Less is more,” says Urciuoli. “I always look at a dish and think about how much to take out instead of put in.” I Support Local Community Journalism Support the independent voice of Phoenix and help keep the future of the New Times free. In a new second location, Pa’La Downtown, simplicity is not an immutable law like gravity. It is more of a path down a fork in the road, a path that only a few dishes cover. This divergence stems from an improbable connection in the kitchen, a semi-open space dominated by a wood-burning stove in the back of a narrow dining room (under a dining room on the second floor), spacious and dazzling and curving with wistful prints of the Italian coast Leather booths and low light bulbs. The unlikely kitchen union? A meeting of Italian and Japanese cuisine. Although they are spatially far apart, these two actually have a lot in common spiritually. Both have beloved traditions that are almost Spartan in their rigor (see: Sushi and Yakitori, Panini and Pasta). And both often follow a common north star: overarching simplicity. And yet, once the mozzarella and togarashi mix, it gets complex. At Pa’La Downtown, that mix – touching some, but not all, of the dishes – often results in a great meal. Much of this hybrid category consists of Italian-themed plates enhanced by Japanese-inspired tweaks from Jason Alford, the former Roka Akor chef who runs Pa’La Downtown with Urciuoli. The menu has expanded to include crudo, pizza, a few starters and flash specials such as pasta, gnocchi and soups. There is also a cocktail menu and elaborate desserts. However, tapas is still the main event. If you order correctly, a fleet of small plates will come one after the other, fregola and charred octopus constantly filling your table. The simple, more Italian tapas plates are delicious. click to enlarge Squid over Fregola. Jackie Mercandetti Photo Urciuoli remains a master of the bread. A plate of baguette rounds and small quantities of olive oil that sizzles the grass and pepper in your throat is intoxicating enough to spark the lawsuit over the recent death of the bread service in American restaurants. His focaccia is even better. Spongy-soft with a lot of inner airiness, it packs a grainy intensity that goes far beyond anything that is possible with tired white flour. The kitchen is still tweaking flour, even for pizza. Recently, they’ve been using blends made from valued grains from the American West, including some from Tucson’s BKW farms. Pizza dough gets a big boost from olive oil made by a leading Italian producer, Decimi (from Umbria), which produced just 850 liters when it was bottled last October. (Urciuoli has grabbed many.) Click to enlarge Pa’La’s wonderful breads. Jackie Mercandetti Photo The thin pizzas from Pa’La Downtown are a study of lightness. The slices are so small that they are hardly there – yet all parts radiate flavor. There is an aromatic margherita with wild oregano, pizza with ricotta and salumi, even specialties with toppings such as corn, paprika and togarashi. The plates that are most likely to get stuck in your hungry mind – aside from those dripping with olive oils from Liguria to Sicily – move from Urciuoli’s extreme simplicity to the Italian-Japanese empire. Urcioli and Alford serve three scallops with an apple sauce that is far from applesauce. The greenish slurry underneath is made from peas mixed with miso, olive oil, garlic, and onions. Lime juice and za’atar are added on top, along with a small apple, which is grated from the whole fruit with the sharp holes of an oroshi grater. The fruitiness sings and harmonizes with the sea sweetness of the scallops as it joins the umami of the miso. Downtown, the best bite is another creative hybrid: a beef skewer with polenta that has even more to offer. An Italian-Japanese hybrid: beef skewers. Jackie Mercandetti Photo This dish consists of meat polenta, common in northern Italy, and beef tataki. The bridge: a Japanese-style marinade with wafu sauce, enriched with maple syrup, olive oil and grated apple. The kicker here is red peppers, roasted and diced in a wood oven, bathed in its own marinade, with the hits of salt and brine from Colatura, the ancient southern Italian sauce made from the juice of salted anchovies pressed. And that’s just the beef. The polenta? On the opposite pole of the simple to complex spectrum: Made with the bare essentials, only cornmeal and water. The beef – New York strips pulled on a short skewer – is tremendously rich. A hint of anchovy and roasted pepper is so subtly hidden that for a few bites you may not notice it. They blend seamlessly, accentuating the beef and pushing it forward. The two chefs say their soldering styles is still evolving, but they may have struck the right balance here. Not all records reach this high level. A vegetable sandwich on focaccia is pretty average, clumped with creamy sauce and light on the vegetables. A light-colored salad of lightly seared tuna is reminiscent of Chirashi (Japanese) and Crudo (Italian), but lagged behind the top-of-the-line versions of Phoenix. Still, the unlikely development of Pa’La 2.0 is ongoing. It’s already bringing something sophisticated, original, and gently electric to downtown Phoenix. It’s the kind of place with all the attraction, flexibility, and variety to have a quick bite, meal, drink, pizza, or even just bread and glorious olive oil – a place to follow and do for the months to come that you can hopefully return to. Years. Pa’La Downtown 132 East Washington Street 602-368-3052 Bread and olive oil USD 3 Burrata with tomatoes USD 11 Beef skewers with polenta USD 9 Scallops with apple miso USD 14 Special pizza USD 14 (varies)
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