Tolf Unveiled After 35 Years

Trend restaurant critic Robert W. Tolf's first column
January 1973

In the Greater Miami area there are between 150 and 200 Italian eating establishments, ranging in size from a single take-out window pizza shack to those elaborate and often overwhelming palaces decorated in a style best described as a crash course in Italian contributions to Western Civilization. Quality and cost, service and setting, atmosphere and ambiance, cover a similar range.

There are innumerable low-priced pasta emporiums with pseudo-Piedmontese decor and with spaghetti swimming out of their kitchens in volume that must be measured by the ton.

There are thousands of pizzas prepared every hour, some by chains now spreading across the state, and others by various Mom and Pop operations, still others by the remarkable Pizza Queen of Florida, Marcella Vitalina Aitkin.

There are many trattorias that offer more than simple pizza or submarine sandwiches, and a few of these, but only a few (such as Gatti's, Casa Santino, Raimondo's and more recently, that same Pizza Queen with her Marcella's Kitchen) are definitely more Grand Ristorante than Trattoria. Another member of this group, although it is probably more accurately regarded as Trattoria than Ristorante in the mechanics of the operation, is one that bears the proudest name of all, that of the Pearl of the Mediterranean, the Italian Riviera city of San Remo.

Natives. There are other restaurants using the name, notably a very fine establishment on Eighth Avenue in New York and another in Florida, in Daytona Beach, and there are undoubtedly a few more scattered around the country; but none could be as authentic in terms of origin as that on Miami's Biscayne Boulevard, for the restaurant there is operated by two natives of San Remo, Sylvana and Peter Petazzoni.

The Petazzonis originally met in San Remo: Sylvana was employed as a guide for Cook's and Peter was working in his father's restaurant, the Lanterna (at that time a good place for seafood). A few years later, in the early '60s, they were both in Nassau, married but both still working, Sylvana as a hostess and Peter as maitre 'd — Sylvana had been a stewardess for a time and Peter a waiter and later steward on several of the local cruise ships. Neither was really content — Peter wanted to be his own boss and Sylvana wanted to be a chef. In 1964 they moved to Miami and opened the San Remo.

Although located on Miami's Restaurant Row, the building they leased was not originally constructed as a restaurant, but as a two-story house. In the first years of World War II, it was converted into a restaurant, Sabatino's.

It was a good restaurant; in fact one of the best Italian restaurants in the area; but in 1960 Sabatino decided he had had enough and the French took over. For the next three years it was known as La France and when that establishment faded there were no fewer than five different restaurants, or at least five different names, in the course of 16 months! Apparently, there was a steady downward progression from bad to worse, to impossible, and the old house on the boulevard acquired the reputation of being something to avoid.

Challenge. Thus, when the Petazzonis moved into their new enterprise (literally, for the living quarters are on the second floor) and took hammer, saw and paint brush in hand, they did not realize the enormity of the challenge ahead: the exceedingly difficult task of establishing a name, of rebuilding the reputation of Sabatino's.

Their first decision was nearly disastrous: they repainted and furnished the San Remo just as they would have done back in Italy with white walls, simple chairs and tables — a typical Roman or Florentine Trattoria with all the emphasis on the food and none on the decor. As the Petazzonis soon learned, the simple, whitewashed approach to the kind of dining they were offering would never line their pockets. Today's reds and rich brown woods in the San Remo are a far cry from those original severe and simple surroundings.

The inside entry is flanked by racks of the wine selection. There is no liquor license and thus you can save your palate for the food and wine. Featured here is a label of the house, a reserve Quintal una White and Centeno Red, both from the Paglia Valley in Umbria, near Orvieto, a well known area of good wines. Both the Petazzoni wines are dry and quite proper accompaniment to the offerings of Sylvana's kitchen; for that kitchen, in the seven or so years since the petite blonde has been working her wonders in the back of the old house, has steadily improved.

Masters. What Sylvana did not learn from her mother and the series of chefs she had pestered to the point of allowing her to take more than a passive role in the kitchen, she has learned from the classic Italian cookbooks, and from her own trial and error behind the burners and during her first years in Miami, also from a series of Italian masters in the old country, including those found in the Grand Hotel in Rimini and the Majestic in Milan and anywhere else she could talk her way into the kitchen for a few weeks of standing at the side of an accomplished chef.

I am sure it took all Sylvana's charm, but then Sylvana has considerable charms — she certainly does not fit the general picture of what one expects to find in the kitchen of a good Italian restaurant. Blonde, small of frame and without any indication she even samples the pasta, Sylvana seems to be a walking advertisement, the "after" shots of the health spas or weight watchers' clinics. And yet, despite her petiteness, her quick smile and persuasive personality, I am certain that no one enters her workshop uninvited, for Sylvana works alone.

But whether alone or with a team, she has to be one of the best looking chefs in Christendom and she is certainly one of the least dressed, for with the heat of Miami and the heat of the stoves, Sylvana is usually (un) dressed in hot pants and halter — somewhere I have visions of putting her talents on view in one of those simple downtown restaurant windows where the grill and cook can be studied by all passers-by: I'm sure there would be an instant traffic jam.

And what of the product? In a word, as bellisima as Sylvana. The menu is not extensive, nor is it particularly expensive: there is a daily dinner special at $5.95, the usual New York Strip steak at the usual $7.95 (for those who cannot give up the American Strip even while vacationing in San Remo). There are also some specials that mark Sylvana as one of the better and more imaginative chefs in this and many other areas: stuffed shrimp Monte Carlo, Veal Imperatrice, Veal Buongustaio and Zuppa Inglese.

Caloric Wonder. Taking last things first, the English Soup was so named because it is eaten with a spoon and is regarded as a highly sophisticated dessert (although there are as many arguments about the origins of the name as there are about Mussolini). A speciality of the Bologna region, this caloric wonder is never better than when made at San Remo. Sylvana does not use a simple sponge cake or commercial chocolate sauce or cheap rum, she makes her own sauce from bittersweet chocolate, drowns the ladyfingers in rivers of the finest rum and finally, adds the necessary Al-chermes, a very special Italian liquer that is not available in the U. S.

The Veal Imperatrice is a 1969 Sylvana creation and consists of layers of veal scaloppine cooked with Chablis or Rhine wine with prosciutto and mushrooms. All of this is encased in a thin crepe that is then drowned in a Mornay sauce.

The Veal Buongustaio is even more imaginative and in 1971 won the award of the Italian Club de Buongustaio in a Milan competition (the only other chef in the country I know who can claim that distinction from this Italian equivalent of the Escoffier Society is the chef at the Waldorf-Astoria). That dish is a taste delight with a rack of veal and asparagus, king crab, gruyere cheese and all laced with sherry and sauces of Mornay and a type of Bear-naise.

And for that particular someone who is not content with two such veal creations, Sylvana is now developing a third to be called Marc Antonio and if her previous achievements are any indication, this, too, will be a prize-winner. We are equally certain that Sylvana will continue to work out other delights, just as Peter will continue to present those delights with all the pride and professionalism of his 22 years of experience.

We strongly recommend that you share in some of the family talent. It's a special type of evening, a genuine touch of Europe, an absolute pleasure from A to Z — from Antipasto to Zuppa Inglese. The address is 2655 Biscayne Blvd. and the telephone number is 573-9402.

Tags: Dining & Travel