Vegetables Al Fresco : Chef Grows What He Serves in Gardens Near Restaurant

Sherman Oaks chef Tindaro Pettignano is cultivating fans who have never set foot in his Ventura Boulevard restaurant or put a fork to his Capelli d’Angelo Primavera .

He’s doing it by cultivating crops a few steps from the rear door of his La Pergola Italian Ristorante.

Pettignano tends garden plots that are sandwiched between apartments and condominiums in the shadow of high-rise office buildings near Ventura Boulevard’s busy intersection with Sepulveda Boulevard.

Rows of corn stand next to the street in the front yard of Pettignano’s home. A few doors away, bushy tomato plants are among hundreds of vegetables, flowers and fruit trees sprouting from a 6,000-square-foot lot at the corner of Moorpark Street and Lemona Avenue.

His fans include neighbors who never eat in his restaurant but appreciate the corny look.

“It’s refreshing to see something like this in a place like Sherman Oaks, where there’s so much development,” said Cynthia Cummins, who visits Pettignano’s mini-farms every day on walks with her 2-year-old daughter Jaclyn.

Cumming says that as “a stay-at-home mommy,” she can’t afford to eat at Pettignano’s restaurant. But “it’s very aesthetic to see his vegetables growing” instead of the usual Sherman Oaks’ kind of growth, involving “everything being torn down and big condos going up.”

Residents of condominiums that overlook Pettignano’s miniature agribusiness keep their eyes peeled for radish rustlers and others who might be tempted to pick his produce. They also cheer Pettignano on each morning when he hoes and waters his plants, which are grown without pesticides.

At 11 a.m. each day, Pettignano picks cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes. An hour later, he serves them as La Pergola Salad, Mista All ‘Italiana and Di Mare Seafood Salad to his restaurant’s lunch crowd.

In the afternoon, he turns his eggplant, zucchini and bell peppers into Lasagne Alla Contadina and other evening dinner specials. He said his gardens provide him with nearly every vegetable he needs, except mushrooms.

“I don’t save any money doing this,” said the 38-year-old Italian-born chef. “It’s just a hobby. It makes me happy to grow things. It makes other people happy to see them. A lot of people around here have never seen anything like it.”

Pettignano started his garden by cultivating his front yard and planting vegetables in his tiny back yard. Then he decided to track down the owner of the long-vacant lot at Lemona and Moorpark and agreed to rent it for $200 a month. He spent about $3,000 to have water piped in.

“I studied agriculture in Italy until I was 18, when I got involved in my brother’s restaurant over there,” he said. After coming to the United States and working as a waiter on a cruise ship and as a chef in San Luis Obispo, he opened his Sherman Oaks restaurant 1 1/2 years ago.

The front of his 60-chair restaurant is decorated with outdoor planters. Hidden among their small trees and shrubs are tiny clumps of parsley, basil and other spices. In a pinch, Pettignano said, he can dash out to harvest an emergency supply for his kitchen.

Most of Pettignano’s customers know about his gardens. Many stroll over to look at the latest crop.

“The vegetables here are the best I’ve ever eaten,” said diner Paul De Montesquiou of Woodland Hills. “They are the freshest, tastiest, sweetest I’ve ever had in any restaurant.”

Diner Bob Delay of Sherman Oaks was unaware of the do-it-yourself produce, however. “Could I tell the difference in the freshness of my salad? Truthfully? No,” he grinned.

Delay said he came for the Cioppino Alla Livornese . That’s a clam dish.