Here, at Armandino Batali's busy, narrow storefront/counter/tiny restaurant in Pioneer Square (just look for the little orange flag with a pig on it), you can find house-cured Italian meats--a.k.a. "salumi," premium-quality artisanal cold cuts, if you will, all made by Batali and his talented staff--along with hot and cold sandwiches ($6.25-$8) and platters that feature cooked meats (sausages, meatballs, and, my favorite, ox tails; $8.50) as well as cured meats (various salamis, coppa, pancetta, prosciuttos, tongue, and cured lamb; with bread for $9). Very little is more satisfying than walking up to a counter and saying, Yeah, I'll take the "Hot Meat Plate," thanks.
There are also good cheeses and olives and red table wine, and takeout items, which include homemade sauces and gnocchi, and, of course, meat by the pound. Daily lunch specials depend on season/whim: Last week, I had a delicious lasagna with lots of cheese and porchetta ($7), which is "Salumi's tribute to the pig"--roasted pork, stuffed with sausage meat and spices. I tried a bowl of "white gazpacho" with cucumbers and roasted grapes, and loved rolling all those flavors around in my mouth. I eyed a watermelon salad with fresh mint and onion, but who orders a salad in Meat Church? And lately, for summertime, they've been offering a nice prosciutto sandwich with fig confit and Coach Farm goat cheese. A lomo sandwich (cured pork loin, beautifully pink and peppery, $8) stacked with fresh mozzarella, onions, and peppers also made me blissfully happy. And I'm still thinking about those stuffed ribs.
Okay, confession: I've been trying to write about Salumi for the longest time. Since, like, February. But each time I start to do it, I just... can't. I've been putting this off since forever. I'm still not convinced I can do it now. I'm terrified of sounding like a wannabe epicurean jackass, of messing up the details, of sounding like a dumb gushing kid. Of just doing it WRONG.
The problem is that I've got a clumsy, unrequited crush on the place--I go in there and suddenly I'm Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. I can't speak. I just end up feeling awkward and in the way, gazing at the menu board and other people's food. I get shy, lose my ability to make a decision and communicate it. Batali smiles at me; I blush.
I sit at Salumi's single communal table, where everyone eats with elbows tucked in, the tabletop cluttered with bread baskets, a wine bottle or two, containers of silverware, little plates with pools of olive oil. Batali clears dishes, checks on people, chats with regulars, asks how my lunch is. My mouth goes dry, and I can barely answer him. I just grin and chew, nodding like an idiot.
Apparently, I'm not the only one. The Man Who Cures the Meat has charmed the pants off local chefs, foodies, and food writers since he first opened up shop in the late '90s, after an East Coast apprenticeship and an educational trip to Italy, where Batali learned the art and craft of making salumi from skilled, authentic Italian norcini (a norcino is an Italian pig butcher and salumi expert). The Batali-Salumi story has taken on folklore status: You can't read an article about Salumi without it inevitably turning into a loving profile of Batali and his Meat Journey--his 31 years working for Boeing, his post-retirement passion, the Italy trip, the success of his second career, and the success of his son Mario, a New York City restaurateur/best-selling cookbook author/Food Network personality/celebrity chef. (Those Batali boys know what to do with a piece of veal, know what I'm saying?) Even the esteemed Jeffrey Steingarten, one of my favorite snooty food writers, admiringly mentions Salumi in his column this month in Vogue ("Cuts Above," September 2002), with an accompanying Irving Penn photo of various salumi that's like the Playboy centerfold of cold cuts.
I think this is why I'm such a neurotic mess about Salumi. It's so tempting to fall into the trap of fetishizing the older Italian gentleman who tends to his little shop, an irresistibly cozy human-interest story. It's so easy to read articles like Steingarten's and start to geek out about curing techniques and pig parts and spices and regional methods and the difference between Tuscan and Calabrian soppressata.
"[Salumi] is fermented food!" Steingarten writes. "It is the cheese of meat, the wine of pork, and sourdough of flesh! It is alive!" And the trivia is fascinating--from organic pig to preparation to a temperature-and-humidity-controlled cellar to a curing environment that involves high acidity, nitrates, and a benign lactobacillus colony. (Relax. It's all perfectly safe because the curing environment is, according to Steingarten, "completely inhospitable to harmful bacteria," and trichinosis has been eradicated for decades.) But despite the potential graduate thesis or Saturday Evening Post essay that could result from being a Salumi faithful, I STILL CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO EXPLAIN THE PLACE.
Looking back at notes I've taken over the year, they read like a moony diary: "today was depressing and I snuck down to Salumi for lunch soup, tomato-based broth but clear, square hunks of zucchini, some corn, too...." Or "...potato galette, mashed-potato-pie thingy, with melted cheese and vegetables, the perfect food, windy day, cold hands. some awesome oregano salami. Brought home a tub of meatballs in marinara." Or "Braised pork cheeks today. leeks and other stuff... amazing fennel sausage [pork, cracked fennel, garlic] and lamb sausage [orange and cumin], Emily had a grilled lamb sandwich--excellent." Show up often enough and you'll realize that the allure of the place is not about its hype or exclusive products or the owner's son or prestigious clientele; it's about the cream-colored room itself, warm and crowded and filled with good smells. It's about the Tuscan finnochiona salami ($13.50/lb), studded with fennel seeds, and the best spicy soppressata ($13.50/lb) I have ever tasted--complex, slightly smoky, and a vivid red (perhaps from smeared red peppers...?). Hold up a piece of any one of Batali's salamis and you'll see a carnal kaleidoscope, with bits of rosy hues and solid or clear whites, a slice of careful handiwork.
Show up during an intense lunch rush, and get in that long line, with the sweetest guys busting their asses behind that counter, and you'll witness the beauty that is the relationship between Man and Meat Slicer. Show up after 2:30 p.m. when things slow down, and feel as if you're part of the neighborhood: I've indulged in some catty gossip at that table; I've also read three chapters while inhaling some pasta. One afternoon a friend of Armandino's suddenly stood up and burst into Italian opera while Armandino ran around pouring wine into everybody's glasses. Another afternoon I wanted to strangle the schmuck sitting next to me, bleating on his cell phone while eating. And on one particularly dark day, I bought an entire pound of that heavenly soppressata, took it home, and ate nearly a half-pound in the bathtub, right out of the bag.
Salumi
309 Third Ave S (Pioneer Square), 621-8772. Tues-Fri 11 am-4 pm.
