Sweet Simplicity: Apple Panna Cotta with Chestnut Cream

Fall flavors are making their way onto our dessert menu!

Apple Panna Cotta

Our creamy local apple panna cotta is layered over a luscious chestnut cream. Topped with sweet and gooey candied chestnuts, tart apple granita, and crisp, raw apples tossed with finely chopped white pine needles and honey. 

Spoon in to this flavorful fall dolce!

Sweet Simplicity: Seadas

A traditional dessert from the island of Sardinia, seadas are stuffed fritters filled with pecorino and drizzled with honey after frying. Seadas, also known as sebadas, get their name from the Sardinian dialect word “seu”, which is the animal fat used in candle-making and refers to sheen of the honey with which they are drizzled. 

Seadas have a romantic history; they were traditionally prepared by women for their husbands who were out in the spring pasture for long periods with the sheep. 

Chef Tom's version of Seadas could be a dessert, or even a cheese course! Glossy pillows of crisp dough are stuffed with three cheeses - Pecorino, ricotta, and Cacio di Roma - as well as lemon zest and orange zest. The warm fritters are tossed in wildflower honey, orange zest and Amaro, and served with fresh, seasonal figs. 

Seadas at Fiola

Sweet Simplicity: Summer's Late Bounty

We've experienced a late start to the summer fruit season.  But, ahhh, it's worth the wait! 

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings is now offering poached red peaches and peach-white wine granita to provide a cool finish on these sweltering summer evenings, paired with almond financier and peach gelato.

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings' new peach dessert

 Available starting next week ... be sure to try the grilled watermelon sorbetto, a surprising combination of smoky-sweet refreshment. And don't miss the wild Oregon plum "macedonia" with a semolina cake and sheep's milk yogurt sorbetto, offered on our tasting menu. 

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings

Sweet Simplicity: Roasted Apricots

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings is now offering Albicocche Arrosto, or roasted apricots, on the Dolci menu. Chef Tom is roasting juicy apricots in honey, white wine, vanilla, and thyme, and serving them with a tangy sheep's milk yogurt sorbetto, with crunchy honey-oats, sliced almonds, vanilla spongecake, lemon balm, and a honey-milk froth.

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings' Albicocche Arrosto

Sweet Simplicity: Goat Cheese Panna Cotta with Old Chandler Strawberries

Nothing tastes more like Spring than creamy goat cheese and the season's first sweet strawberries. Pastry Chef Tom Wellings is offering a goat cheese panna cotta with Chandler strawberries, which are served macerated, churned into a refreshing sorbetto, and also whipped into a strawberry froth. 

The Chandler is an old variety of strawberry known for its sweetness and flavor.

Chandler Strawberries

Goat Cheese Panna Cotta with Chandler Strawberries

 The panna cotta is also garnished with a Szechuan peppercorn tuile. E' arrivata La Primavera! Spring has arrived!

A New Member of the Family

Demolition starts Monday!

Let the games begin! Demolition starts Monday on our new location at 1099 New York Avenue NW (entrance on 11th Street). 

Every chef is a product of a place and a tradition. Named for his nine-year-old son Luca who has already begun apprenticing with his father in the kitchen at Fiola, Casa Luca will be a homage to Trabocchi’s family heritage and his upbringing in the Le Marche region of Italy, among sharecroppers, fishermen, artisans, truck drivers and everything in between. Casa Luca will feature the traditional, authentic and affordable cooking of Le Marche families.

“My father taught me not just about cooking, but about food sourcing and sustainable farming. When I was growing up, these were not trends; they were and still are the way of life for Italians,” says Chef Trabocchi. “These are the core values that will shape the culinary direction at Casa Luca.”

The menu will include charcuterie and cheese selections, Le Marche flatbreads such as crescia and chichì, antipasti and salads del campo (from the fields), housemade pastas, and main courses, such as roasted and grilled meats and fish. Presentations will be straightforward, allowing the fresh, seasonal ingredients to shine. Traditional dishes will take on a rustic elegance, appealing to modern palates craving familiar flavors, such as:

• Montefeltro Flatbread “Crescia” with Broccoli Rabe
• “Chichirichì di Offida” Stuffed with Onions and Roasted Peppers
• Mussels Alicia with Tomato Marinara
• San Leo Ravioli of Greens, Parmigiano, Lemon Zest and Fresh Herbs
• Scrippelle ’Mbusse Crepes of Pecorino, Truffles, and Hen Consomme
• Monkfish with Baby Artichokes, Scallions and Dill “Porchetta” style
• Giuseppe “Braciole” Pork Chop with Zolfino Beans “Cacciatora” style
• Salami al Cioccolato Marchigiano, in small and large sizes to share

In the spirit of traditional Italian osterie that offered only one dish daily, Casa Luca will feature rotating daily specials such as Lamb Chop “Scottadito” on Tuesdays and Porchetta Ascolana on Thursdays.

Chef Trabocchi hopes to cultivate a traditional tavern feel for the bar with approachable beverage options and a convivial ambiance. Wine on tap - vino alla spina - is customary in small towns across Italy, and Casa Luca will offer several sparkling, white and red selections on tap. To remove the inhibition and confusion of price from guests’ wine selection, Wine Director John Toigo will offer 20 accessible, food friendly bottles from across Italy and Spain – 10 whites and 10 reds – at only $28. Traditional Italian aperitifs and liquors will take a place of pride on Bar Manager Jeff Faile’s well-curated cocktail menu.

Casa Luca’s interior design will evoke the warm atmosphere Trabocchi family dinners in both Italy and Spain. Much like the menu, traditional and artisanal accents will coexist harmoniously within the modern exterior framework of the building. The interior will showcase hand-blown glass lamps from producer Gordiola in Maria Trabocchi’s home of Mallorca and hand printed textiles from a family of artisans at Antica Stamperia Marchi near the Le Marche coast, juxtaposed against the sleek building façade.

Visit the Casa Luca website or follow us on Twitter!

Sweet Simplicity: Rhubarb

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings is giving a perennial Fiola favorite - the zuppa inglese - a spring makeover! Chef Tom is now offering a vanilla-mascarpone custard set with pectin, served with plump segments of blood oranges macerated in sugar and extra virgin olive oil, topped with sweet and tart rhubarb-limoncello granita.

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings' Spring Panna Cotta

Sweet Simplicity ... Cherry Blossoms!

The city will kick off the National Cherry Blossom Festival later this month with the peak bloom dates expected the last week in March. In honor of these delicate and beautiful blossoms and as as celebration of this beloved springtime celebration, starting the week of March 11 Pastry Chef Tom Wellings will be offering two cherry blossom themed desserts:

• Vanilla Panna Cotta with Cherry Blossom Honey and Toasted Marcona Almonds
• Macarons with Amarena Cherry and Cherry Blossom Buttercream

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings

Sweet Simplicity: Ricciarelli

Ricciarelli at Fiola 

As part of the Tuscany tasting menu, Pastry Chef Tom Wellings is serving up ricciarelli, the classic almond cookie from Siena whose origins date back to the 14th century. Ricciarelli are said to be shaped like the almond eyes of madonnas by Renaissance painters.  Chef Tom's ricciarelli are made with almond meal, ground bitter almonds, sugar, egg whites, and almond extract. The ricciarelli are served with a creamy vanilla milkshake. Available as part of the Tuscany tasting menu, Monday through Thursday in Fiola Bar and Lounge only.

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings

Sweet Simplicity

Babà al Rhum is a classic Neapolitan pastry with Polish roots that came to Naples by way of Paris. Confused? Such is Italian, and Neapolitan, history. The babà was invented by a Polish king whose daughter Marie was married to Louis XV of France. According to the legend, this former king dipped a slice of kugelhopf (an Austrian pastry, half-brioche and half panettone) into a glass of Madeira, and what would become the babà was born.

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings' Babà al Rhum.

Variations in the dough technique and the liquor used to soak the pastry evolved the Babà from the courts of Versailles to the streets of Naples into what we know today; a yeasted buttery cake soaked in rum. 

Fiola Pastry Chef Tom Wellings' version of this iconic dessert is a plump dome, which is proofed, baked, then soaked twice in a sweet syrup flavored with lemon and orange zests, vanilla bean and dark rum. Finally the Babà are dipped in blood orange glaze. 

To accompany the Babà, Chef Tom makes a caramel flavored with Szechuan peppercorns, which is combined with juicy pineapple rounds and then cooked slowly for approximately 40 minutes. Spicy, sweet and somewhat acidic, Szechuan peppercorns impart an intoxicating hint of pine and cedar.

Pastry Chef Tom Wellings