Dining Out
Master Chef serves up savory Italian dishes
By Don Klein
Fausto DiCarlo, owner of Ristorante Antipasti, is not boasting when he says, “Only in America can I make a Wendy’s into an Italian villa.”
He is talking about the new location for his gourmet restaurant at 31 st Street and Coastal Highway which not to long ago was slinging hamburgers and other fast food specialties. Today it is one of the finest sit down restaurants in Ocean City.
After 10 years of operation two blocks to the north at 33 rd Street, the restaurant moved this past winter when Wendy’s vacated the location. It was just what Fausto was looking for. It turns out the move did not dampen the enthusiasm customers had developed for Fausto’s dishes over the past decade.
“Last Saturday (just days after opening at the new location) was our biggest night ever in the 10 years we have been in Ocean City”, he declared in a recent interview.
Fausto brags that the food he serves is the same as you would get in Italy. We are on a par with restaurants in Florence and Rome,” he insists. “Italian food is simple, no butter, no saturated fats, no cholesterol, no heavy doses of garlic and thick tomato sauces.”
The master chef, whom everyone calls Fausto, learned his trade at his mother’s side in Controguerra, a town in the Abruzzi region of Italy. His mother, Ninetta DiCarlo, now 92, is still considered among the 50 top chefs in Italy. Fausto visits her every November for family reunions and also to pick her brain for tips and new recipes.
The visits paid off when Fausto found himself on the U.S. Food Network a few years ago and was ruled a winner. He earned the rank of one of the top five pasta restaurants in the country. The winning dish is called timballo Abrussese, a lasagna-like delight with thin pasta layers covering tantalizing ground veal, buffalo mozzarella and nutmeg filling. The result is gentle on the palate and less filling than lasagna.
“They still show the program featuring that dish on the Food Network in reruns”, he cheerfully noted. This award allows Ristorante Antipasti to advertise this pasta triumph for all to see on the giant new sign in the front of the restaurant.
Many of today’s Americans have traveled to Italy and tasted the light dishes that are popular there, making Fausto’s style much more appealing than past Italian fare in the neighborhoods.
Reading the restaurant’s menu I like opening an Italian-English dictionary. The dishes are written in Italian and numbered so if you can not pronounce “Rollatini di Vitello ai Funghi“ you can order number 35 and receive a repast of rolled veal with prosciutto, cheese and mushrooms.
The unique attraction at the eatery is its fine display of appetizers laid out on a long table inside the entrance. The festive looking assembly includes paper-thin antipasti, calamari, salmon, trout and halibut with goat cheese, onions and capers, littleneck clams, mussels and other tangy bite-size treats.
The menu includes savory soups, salads, pasta, seafood, chicken, veal and steak. During our visit the specials were a giant steak (believed to be about three pounds worth) with appropriate seasoning designed for two healthy beefeaters and a robust striped bass from the west coast for seafood lovers.
For those who want authentic Italian desserts Fausto offers a mixed berry tart and what is called a thousand layer zabaglione shipped to him directly from Italy plus the standard house-made fare of the cannoli, tiramisu line. If you are longing for that endangered specie, the great invisible tortoni, which you can hardly find these days, he might even zap one up for you even if it is not on the menu.
Fausto is a stickler for authenticity. He even imported from Italy the paint used to decorate the restaurant. It is called Tuscany country style terra cotta and he used two different shades for the walls and ceilings. It is a warm rich color in what can best be described as an orange-brown. “At night it glows,” he said. It is hard to describe, you must see it first hand to appreciate it.
Decorations include three moderns shaped chandeliers, two large mirrors, a multitude of different size paintings and plenty of plants loaded with flowers. All in all it is a welcoming atmosphere.
Fausto calls eating at Ristorante Antipasti a culinary trip to today’s Italy. He has a proverb about food: “Pasta is like sex, when it’s good it’s like heaven, even when it’s bad it’s not so bad.”
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Ristorante Antipasti
By Food Network, The Best Of
Tanned and fit, with a hearty Italian accent, owner Fausto DiCarlo makes it a point to greet every guest- especially women. In true European style, he bestows them with a friendly kiss (men receive a firm handshake). He's become famous for it. Women remind him if he forgets. Given the large crowds at his restaurant, this guy could make Richard Dawson blush.
Talented enough to have once been a cooking sensation in Philadelphia, DiCarlo relocated to this vacation playground in 1993. He figured he could work hard in the summer and enjoy golf in the off-season.
He might have a six handicap, but he's busy year 'round. Ristorante Antipasti is a first-class Italian restaurant, but the fact that it's in a resort town best known for chains and all-you-can-eat buffets makes it a true standout.
Fausto's signature dish, Timballo Di Mamma, is made of thin layers of homemade pasta filled with ground veal, tomatoes, and a bechamel sauce. DiCarlo used to call it a "Sunday dish" and offer it as an occasional special, because it required so much work. But it became so popular, he had to add it to the menu. Another mouthwatering specialty is the Garlic Steak, a center-cut fillet covered in Italian herbs and then grilled black. You won't find this anywhere else.
After a decade of success, DiCarlo opened a second Ocean City location in 2003. With his typical style, he scurried between the two restaurants aboard his Italian-made Vespa scooter.
Golf would have to wait. There are guests to be greeted and many kisses to be bestowed.
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Ristorante is Mucho Bellisimo
This bona fide Italian restaurant takes risks and delivers the goods
By The Go! Mystery Reviewer
Saturday was pasta-drying day at my Italian grandmother's house. To get to the kitchen from the front door, one had to first maneuver through hundreds, possibly thousands, of strands of whatever was on the menu for Sunday dinner. Funny how freshly made fettuccine draped over a chair doesn't seem unusual, just as stucco walls in pastel colors, pictures of the Pope and plastic vegetables as decor seem perfectly suitable for me.
With that as background, imagine my nostalgia walking into Ristorante Antipasti. The five-room seating area is stucco-green, stucco-pink, and stucco-blue; the obligatory grape vines are hanging from the wall; and while there was no sign of the Pope, a framed picture of Catholic Archbishop Michael Saltarelli was hanging near the entrance.
Wading through pasta was not an issue, but wading through a full menu of homemade possibolities proved quite difficult.
Ristorante Antipasti is a 9-year veteran of Ocean City, the brainchild of owner and sometimes-chef Fausto DiCarlo. The menu features many Italian basics- stuffed pasta, veal, calamari and lots of cheeses- and some surprises- rabbit, for one, and a rare 13-layer Italian dish called Timballo, rare because most restaurants won't invest the time it takes to make it. Plan to pay for that quality, however, as most entrees, including some pasta dishes, are well over the $20 mark. (Smaller appetites can order any pasta entree in "appetizer" size, a nice feature for those who want to try more than one.)
We took a risk and tried the Gnocci DiFausto, aka homemade potato dumplings, and the Clams Casino as appetizers. We say risky because most restaurant gnocci taste like paste and land in the pit of your stomach with a resounding thump. Not these. Lighter than anything we've encountered in a long time, the gnocci had a melt-in-your-mouth quality made even better by a gentle tomato sauce. The $12.50 price tag on the very small appetizer portion was the only drawback to this dish; we hope the $21 entree was a little more substantial. The clams were as good as they come, dressed in bread crumbs and bacon and served piping hot. But again, at $10.50 for six baby clams, this is not food for bargain hunters.
The Italian menu is subtitled in English, but the wait staff is happy to help with any translations. In fact, the wait staff is happy to help with just about anything. When a server from another table overheard us admiring some artwork, he dropped off a catalog of the artist's other pieces. Our own server spent a good bit of time explaining how several dishes were made, and which were most often ordered. Food appeared like clockwork, and empty plates were whisked away with little interruption. Our server even changed the CD when we complained about the synthetic carnival music coming through the speakers.
We opted for a Ristorante special- fettuccine topped with a crab in a spiced pink sauce, and a garlic-sauteed veal chop. The huge chop, bathed in a distinctive demi-glace, arrived with just a sprig of rosemary for garnish. Anything else would have been a distraction from the perfectly cooked, flavorful chop. Our plateful of pasta paired al dente fettuccine with chunks of crab in a house tomato bechamel sauce that got its kick from saffron, among other spices. There was enough to take home, but willpower lost out, and we ate every bite.
Ristorante Antipasti also features a 44-ounce garlic-infused stead for two, which gets high marks from the regulars. Call ahead to get a discount, it's usually on special one night a week. Seafood lovers can indulge in grilled sole, striped bass, shrimp or salmon.
Just when we thought our meal couldn't get any better, the homemade pumpkin cheesecake and tiramisu ($6 each) showed up. Gluttony, no doubt, but a sweet ending to a nearly flawless experience .
Restaurants are selected by the Go! Mystery Reviewer without knowledge of the management or waitstaff. They are judged on food quality, quantity and presentation; atmosphere; service;cleanliness;price; and value. While all restaurants on the Delmarva Peninsula are fair game for review, we focus on restaurants on the Salisbury and Ocean City area. Generally, chain restaurants are not reviewed.
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Ristorante Antipasti... viewer's choice on Food TV
Coconut Times
October 19, 2001
Excitement filled the air at Ristorante Antipasti on Monday night, October 15. Food TV host Marc Silverstein and his camera crew paid a visit to the restaurant on the tip of Dana and Elliott Corn of Salisbury. This culinary savvy couple submitted their favorite restaurant as a candidate for the network's "Best Of" show. the producers chose themes such as best steak, best hot dogs, viewer's choice, etc. This is where Dana and Elliott came in.
Happily for owner Fausto Di Carlo and his staff, they were chosen from among restaurants nationwide to receive the honor. Five restaurants in five different cities will be featured on the show which will air after the new year in 30-minute spots at 9:30 pm, 12:30 am and 1:30 pm daily.
The camera crew first filmed Fausto making his famous Timballo, then interviewed special guests who came to dine that evening.
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Cable's Food Network goes Italian at Antipasti
A great dish gets covered as part of program's viewers choice series
"It's going to come out like heaven," said Chef Fausto DiCarlo as he lifted a tray of timballo out of the oven at his Ristorante Antipasti on Monday afternoon.
The dish was a special one, he said, because it was customarily made only on Sundays in Italy. "I want this every day, not just on Sunday," said Marc Silverstein, host of "The Best Of" on the Food Network. "I really like it."
Antipasti will be featured during a segment in the category of "Viewer's Choice Italian" on the television show, which has its hosts traveling the country in search of the best food, restaurants and trends in cooking. Each half hour episode takes viewers to five states and shows the best top five in a given category, Silverstein said. Antipasti will be featured on a show about Italian restaurants and will be one of the top five in that category. For Monday's filming, DiCarlo was showing off his culinary expertise at the 33rd Street restaurant in Ocean City while a television cameraman was filming.
The chef and restaurant owner also talked about his love affair with food. "I'm very emotional when I talk about food," said DiCarlo, who grew up in the Abruzzi region of Italy. "My mother was a chef. All my life, I've been associated with food. DiCarlo, described by Silverstein as having "movie star good looks," explained that timballo (Italian for timbale, a baked dish) is special because it takes so long to make. In his home country of Italy, he said, "On Sunday, they dress better and they eat a little better. This is a dish characteristic of my town. It takes a lot of hours and you start by hand making the pasta."
The chef, who said he uses only the very finest ingredients, then continued to explain how the timballo is made by layering the thin pasta, ground veal, bechamel sauce in a large pan. Red wine is also used in the dish. Then the culinary masterpiece went into the oven and another one, prepared ahead of time, came out. Silverstein, who had just finished eating in Antipasti's dining room, tasted the timballo and raved about it. Eating is a necessary part of his job. The food is delicious, but often comes with many calories, he said. "We eat in a lot of places," he said of himself and his crew. "We got so...fat."
Apparently Silverstein likes to keep check on that. Before indulging in DiCarlo's cooking in a pre-taping taste test, Silverstein and his crew of three were on the Boardwalk, where they weighed themselves.
Antipasti was chosen for the show because diners recommended it to the network. The show's producer declined to say how many people rated it No. 1, but Elliott and Dana Corn of Salisbury E-mailed the network about Antipasti and were on hand Monday to watch the filming and have another Italian meal.
"It has great food and great service," Elliott Corn said of Antipasti. "We like it very much."
"We come three of four times a year," Dana Corn said. "If we lived here, we'd come more often."
DiCarlo and Antipasti will be featured in a four to five minute segment which will be shown many times, Silverstein said. Mayor Jim Mathias is also featured in the segment talking about Ocean City. The first airing is approximately four or five months away.
"The Best Of" is aired on the Food Network on Monday through Friday at 1:30 and 9:30 pm and 12:30 am and on Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm.
Shows are repeated often so viewers will have many opportunities to see the episode featuring Antipasti It will be shown so often, in fact, that Silverstein said, quite in jest, that it would still be seen when Mayor Jim Mathias is out of office and DiCarlo's hair is dyed black.
Alas, The Food Network is not part of Ocean City's television lineup, but is available in Ocean Pines. |
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