Press Democrat: April 12, 2006

SPRING-Holiday Lamb the Italian Way

From the Food & Wine Section by Diane Peterson

In rustic roasted dish, wine and herbs must be used with restraint to keep delicate flavor Three years ago, Dino Bugica was vacationing in Northern California when he stopped for a bite to eat at Taverna Santi, a cozy Italian restaurant in downtown Geyserville.

Bugica, who had already cooked for seven years in Italy, took one bite of the Trippa alla Fiorentina and decided he wanted to join the Santi kitchen crew, whose proud motto is "Setting Italian Cooking Back 75 Years."

Now, the 30-year-old executive chef at Santi spends his days massaging prosciuttos, grinding homemade sausages and creating seasonal dishes like Abbacchio Al Forno, a roast suckling lamb dish traditionally served around Easter in the region outside of Rome.

"Fresh, local lamb is what everyone dreams of working with," Bugica said. "This dish is rustic, but it tastes great. It's real. It has soul."

At Santi, the lamb from Bellwether Farms in Valley Ford is braised in herbs, white wine, chicken stock and onions until it falls off the bone. When served alongside fava beans or artichokes, it's spring on a plate.

"It's one of the reasons I came to work at Santi," Bugica said. "It's something that you do once a year, and then it's gone. You really look forward to it when it comes around."

In Italy, sheep are mostly raised in the mountainous north, the highlands of the south and on the craggy islands. You'll find them in the regions of Abruzzi and Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily, said Santi chef emeritus Franco Dunn.

"I once worked in a restaurant where they only served lamb," said Dunn, a walking Italian encyclopedia who was one of Santi's founding chefs.

Because the flavor of the young lamb is so delicate, the wine and herbs in the roasted dish need be used with restraint. If his chicken stock is too dark, Bugica adds water. It's all about showcasing the flavor of the young, tender lamb.

"We don't debone any of it - that keeps the flavor," Bugica said. "They are not a fatty animal, so when you braise them with liquid, it gives them more succulence."

Although baby lambs are traditional in this dish, Bugica said home chefs could substitute a spring lamb, which is available from local butchers like Big John's in Healdsburg or Willowside Meats in Santa Rosa.

Doug Swett, general manager of Santi since it opened in 2000, bought the restaurant last year but has stayed the course with the restaurant's artisan style of cooking.

"The chefs do the handmade, Old World Italian style, with everything from scratch," he said. "We make the pastas, the salumi in different styles, the sausage that we sell at the farmers market, limoncello and even homemade tripe."

Since taking the restaurant's reins, however, Swett has introduced some new twists. Live jazz is presented every Sunday night, Italian specials are served on Wednesday nights and the menu changes every two or three weeks.

"We like to keep it fresh, and we're focusing more on being creative," he said. "Dino is tireless and throws his heart and soul into it. He wants to be a great chef, and he doesn't take the shortcut."

Bugica grew up in Reno, Nev., with Italian parents - his mother hails from Liguria, his father from Sicily - and has been cooking fresh and seasonally from an early age. His family had access to fresh ingredients from his grandfather's ranch and farm.

"Every Sunday, they would braise rabbits and pigs, and they made prosciutto and salumi," he said. "For us, ravioli was no big deal. We made raviolis all the time, along with my grandmother's gnocchi."

At 18, Bugica's passion for food led him back to Italy, where he eventually met his wife, Sonia, and worked his way through three restaurants, a Dutch chocolate maker and a butcher shop.

"You learn a lot in Italy, because you usually work with (just) one person," he said. "Every time I go back to Italy for a visit, I work."

Between the wisdom of Dunn and the talent of his chef de cuisine Ari Rosen, Bugica is part of a team that's as authentic as Santi's style of cooking.

"They all trained in Italy and had Italian parents," Swett said. "It's painstaking and can be costly to do ... but they really believe in that kind of cooking and in doing it the right way."

Every spring, Santi serves this delicate lamb dish using the baby lamb raised by Cindy Callahan of Bellwether Farms. This dish is traditionally made in the Lazio area around Rome, where Italians have been tending sheep for thousands of years. Baby lamb is very tender and delicately flavored, with not much fat, so be careful not to overcook it or overwhelm it with too much garlic or wine. If you don't know a rancher or a farmer with baby lamb, ask your butcher for spring lamb, and serve it with the bone-in for more flavor. If you want, you can add a few cubed baby potatoes to the pan about halfway through the baking.