Tosca chef strives to keep it authentic

Two diners, regulars at Ristorante Tosca, asked executive chef Massimo Fabbri for advice on here to eat in Florence. Back in Washington, they thanked him for his recommendation and agreed hat the food was excellent, but expressed astonishment at the un-Italian-ness of what they were offered.

“They had foie gras! What is Italian about foie gras?” Fabbri protested: “If you go to Italy, fine dining ow in restaurants like this one, most use curry. Or have sushi. To be classic in Italy is obsolete!”

Not so at Ristorante Tosca, a dining room with the elegant restraint of an Italian business suit located ear Metro Center. Fabbri, nominated last year by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington as ising Culinary Star of the Year, is clear about the Italian cooking he is striving for: “Keep that flag up s classic as possible. My food is most true Italian, most classic technique-wise.” While it’s presented on he plate in contemporary designerly style, “flavorwise,” he says, “I try to keep it Italian classic as much s possible. No curry, no sushi here.”

The son of a train driver, Fabbri was born in a town 30 miles west of Florence. He decided at 12 to ecome a chef. “There wasn’t much more I wanted to go for.” He shrugs. “What do you know at 12? But y best friend was two years older than me. When I was at [grade] school, he was ... at culinary school.”

Fabbri was attracted by what he saw his friend experimenting with at home. With an aptitude for oreign languages, Fabbri thought cooking might also provide him with an opportunity to travel. So at 4, not an unusual age in Europe to begin a trade apprenticeship or training, he enrolled in a local otel school.

“We studied hotel math, literature — everything was hotel oriented. So,” he explains with a lilting ccent and one of his beguiling slides into the wrong tense, “if you don’t want to be a chef, you would still e ready for the other side of the business.”

He spent four years working in restaurants close to home. Then one of his teachers told him of a work pportunity in London at a new restaurant being opened by the sons of a friend. Fabbri took off, and in oing so he discovered another dimension to his enthusiasm for cooking. “I learned my passion is to be ble to share, to see other people through food. ... It really made me proud of what I do, it gives sense to y life. When you feel like that when you are 19, that’s when you realize you’re in the right pursuit ... .”

Two years later he was back in Italy, via two months’ work in France and two more in Switzerland. ut the travel bug had bitten him. “In Italy I was happy still cooking the whole time but always had this .S. thing in my head. ... the problem was the visa.”

In 2000, good luck tracked him down yet again. A friend went to work for Roberto Donna at Galileo and eported back to Fabbri that one of Donna’s chefs, Cesare Lanfranconi, was recruiting staff for a new estaurant, Terrazza in Friendship Heights.

Fabbri flew in and worked there for the three months of his tourist visa. “I really, really liked it. I till had a lot of learning to do. But I shared a great passion with Cesare, so I decided to stay and went ome to get my [work] visa.” When Terrazza’s manager, Paolo Sacco, and Lanfranconi left later that year o launch their own restaurant, Ristorante Tosca, Fabbri went with them. He started on the pasta line, then worked the grill line and next served as pastry chef until finally he was made sous chef — at which oint his visa expired.

“I was really sad. They said, ‘Go back home and we’ll see what we can do.’” Fabbri’s American girlfriend ecided to go with him. “She loved my family, loved my culture. But in Italy it’s difficult for mericans to stay. The only way to stay together was to get married.” So, in 2003, they did. In December, wo years after he had left Tosca as sous chef, his visa to go back came through, and Fabbri picked up where he had left off. A year later, he was named chef de cuisine.

“I was really proud by the age of 28 to be able to run a restaurant as fine as this.” He beams.

Key to its quality are the ingredients. Most of the dry goods — and the olive oil, cheese, prosciutto and mozzarella — are imported directly from Italy. Fabbri would like to be able to make his own prosciutto and salamis — after all, he makes his own fresh sausages. “But we don’t have a curing room. I made some salami and hung it in the
wine cellar. But Paolo said take it out because of the smell of the room. And the fat dripped onto the carpet.” Fabbri grins.

Could he make them at his home around the corner from the restaurant? “I don’t really cook at home. If I started cooking, everywhere in the house would start smelling.” Instead, he and his wife, Alexis, dine out a good deal. The two don’t find much time to spend together. Aside from a brief afternoon break, he’s at the restaurant from 9 a.m. until 10:30 p.m.Given half a chance, he’d love to watch TV on his one day off. “But my wife is very energetic.” He sighs. “She wants me to get on the Potomac, get a rowing course.”

Ristorante Tosca (202-367-1990; toscadc.com) is located at 1112 F St. NW. Entrees cost $32 to $44.

This article by Julia Watson first appeared in the NorthWest Current newspaper. Photo Bill Petros/The Current.