As promised, Locanda is making it open in April, but just barely. The new Roman sister to Delfina, in the former Ramblas space (557 Valencia), from Craig and Annie Stoll and chef Anthony Strong (Pizzeria Delfina) will officially open on Saturday, April 30, after many months of anticipation and a boatload of pre-opening buzz. It’s going to be a traditional Roman osteria but with the kind of San Francisco perspective that only Stoll and Strong can give it, and in a departure from the other outposts in the Delfina empire, Locanda will have a full bar and cocktail menu. (And in an exciting development for cocktail geeks, L.A. startender Eric Alperin of The Varnish is designing the cocktail program on a consulting basis.) We should have a menu to share soon, but they’re keeping things pretty well under wraps in the way of photos, so we won’t be able to show you the undulating coffered ceiling by Envelope Architecture until next week.
But the deal with the food, as Stoll discussed with us earlier, is that it will be heavy on Roman-specific ingredients like guanciale, artichokes, black pepper, Pecorino, etc., and dishes like saltimbocca, carciofi alla Romana, pasta carbonara. Also, there’ll be whole quinto quarto section of the menu featuring offal; and a selection of pizza bianca, which Stoll was quick to explain isn’t really pizza but is more of a stuffed foccacia-type deal, featuring stuffings like warm lardo, salsa verde, mortadella, and/or arugula.
More soon!
Earlier: More Updates on Locanda, Including a Preview Event, and Q-Bert Tile [Grub Street]
At Locanda, Craig Stoll Wants to Make Like the Mission Is ‘Another Neighborhood in Rome’ [Grub Street]
