Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/49393
FOOD SPOTLIGHT and heirloom toybox tomatoes at Botero Grilled calamari salad with chorizo says, "it doesn't matter if it's August 15 [a summer holiday in Italy, celebrat- ing, of all things, summer itself] or Christmas Eve. Nobody is going to give up their Sunday pasta with tomato sauce." Along with Ronnen, Spero created a delicious vegan tomato bisque using sauce made from Roma tomatoes canned months earlier, when they were at their best. For Paul Bartolotta, the award-winning executive chef of Bartolotta's Ristorante di Mare, who is considered an ambassador of authentic Italian cuisine, the secret to using tomatoes year-round is simply choos- ing the right variety. Bartolotta's mission at Ristorante di Mare is to replicate the flavors of traditional Italian seafood cookery to the point where he is actually replicating the experience of eating by the Italian seaside. "If you don't feel like you are in Italy when you take a bite of my food, I did something wrong," he says. The conundrum is that the seaside experience he's referring to takes place almost exclusively in Bartolotta favors what he calls in Italian pomini or pomodorini, small tomatoes, because they offer more flavor than larger varieties. 66 WYNN the summertime—and it includes tomatoes. "It is not an exaggeration to say that I absolutely couldn't do what I do without them." Bartolotta favors what he calls in Italian pomini or pomodorini, small tomatoes, because they offer more flavor than larger varieties. He uses these sweet little tomatoes in countless dishes, such as acqua pazza, a tra- ditional preparation from Napoli, whose name translates as "crazy water," in which fish is cooked in water, olive oil, sea salt, and pomini. "If every one of the ingredients weren't there, or if every ingredient didn't taste like Italy, it simply wouldn't be acqua pazza." The same goes for scorfano Palermitana, a classic Sicilian preparation of whole scorpion fish, prepared with Sicilian green Castelvetrano olives, capers, lemon, garlic, fresh oregano, and again pomini. "It's such a luscious, unctuous dish," chef Bartolotta says. "And the tomatoes, which collapse when they cook, giving it these bursts of color and flavor, are fundamental." Like Schoenegger, Bartolotta's devotion to the summer tomato is some- thing only an Italian, or an Italophile, or a chef, might completely understand. And being the purist that he is, he must justify his choice. Take Caprese ravi- oli, ricotta-filled ravioli served with a simple sauce of fresh pomini quickly sautéed in olive oil. "It means 'like they make it in Capri,'" he explains. "At one time, you wouldn't have eaten this dish in Capri in the wintertime. But that's changed. Today, even in Italy, you see tomatoes all year long." n