Misinformation sure is easy to come by these days. A waiter once told me that it was acceptable to pronounce bruschetta with a soft \u201csh\u201d sound. At the time, I didn\u2019t know the meaning of the word gullible. Fatto a Mano\u2019s owner Elena Fabbri quickly disabused me of this urban culinary myth. The Tuscan-born chef emphatically enunciated the crunchy Italian appetizer\u2019s name with a hard \u201ck\u201d sound, as in Porchetta Toscana, the catering business she and her husband Gustavo Mutul also run.<\/p>\n
In her newly opened Prescott Market kitchen, Fabbri already moves about the space as if she were at home. When she serves a dish of pasta to a customer, she asks if they\u2019d like even more parmesan cheese sprinkled on top, before adding, \u201cWould you like some bread?\u201d Hospitality, the art of being hospitable, is second nature to her. \u201cI really like to take care of people. I really like to feed people. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve always done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Fabbri was born into a family that owned restaurants. \u201cI wanted to go to culinary school and my parents said, \u2018Absolutely not,\u2019\u201d the chef told me. She studied languages instead. But when she arrived in the Bay Area in 1999, after a stint on the East Coast, Fabbri found work at Mario\u2019s Bohemian Cigar Store in North Beach, Splendido in the Embarcadero and at Giovanni Perticone\u2019s Trattoria Pinocchio.<\/p>\n
In 2017, she and Mutul opened Porchetta Toscana together as a farmers\u2019 market pop-up. They made lasagne and sandwiches served on their homemade focaccia. The company grew into a fulltime business until the pandemic forced them, like everyone in the restaurant industry, to make a great big pivot. They received a government contract to provide meals for elderly folks who were homebound. When people were allowed to eat out again, the couple decided to open a dine-in restaurant together. La Gastronomia in Fairfax will celebrate its third year this spring.<\/p>\n
Fatto a Mano is a different endeavor. After three years in Fairfax, Fabbri was interested in opening a space more casual than La Gastronomia. \u201cWe\u2019re not compromising on the quality of food,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything is still made from scratch; but I just didn\u2019t want to have the whole restaurant set-up per se.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fabbri has moved into the space formerly leased by Prescott Meats and Delicatessen. It\u2019s located directly around the corner from Cafe Noir. There\u2019s one plush booth that three good friends could squeeze into, as well as a high table with a couple of stools. The menu works as both a takeaway and as a fast(er) food model. At most Italian restaurants, the pastas and their companion ingredients are set and served as listed. Fatto offers six pasta shapes to choose from and seven sauces with which to pair them. I chose cheese tortellini and bolognese ($22). The dish was served hot off the stove, as if someone\u2019s nonna had just made (fatto) it by hand (mano).<\/p>\n
I also had a hearty bowl of Tuscan bean soup ($14). Rosemary leaves flecked and flavored the broth while parmesan melted down and over a gathering of small white beans. I couldn\u2019t finish either the pasta or the soup but ate them for lunch the next day.<\/p>\n
Before I ordered at the counter, I caught a glimpse of a cabinet filled with Italian pastries, such as cannoli and cookies. Fabbri said that for now she\u2019s importing most of the desserts in the case. But she\u2019s also a baker. That day she\u2019d made sfogliatella and trecce, two pastries I\u2019d never seen in person. Sfogliatella appeared ages ago as a challenge on The Great British Bake Off, but I\u2019d never heard of trecce before.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an ingenious way to incorporate chocolate into something that\u2019s croissant-adjacent. Instead of lumpen chunks or chips or bars, the chocolate element is one of several woven strands of dough. My timing that day was spot on. Fabbri had just baked a fresh batch of trecce. When I bit into it, I found the dough gloriously light and crisp. And the taste of chocolate wasn\u2019t diluted by the other strands. It made me reevaluate my longstanding committed relationship to pain au chocolat.<\/p>\n