Feast Fit for an Angel-Haired Princess : Tutto-Mare Cook Brings Daughter Into His Work

Corrado Gianotti is an Italian chef right out of Central Casting: bubbly, talking with his hands, effusive about food and even more so about women.

“We Italians love women and we love our families and I love my wife and daughter so much, I name my best dishes after them,” says the executive chef of Tutto-Mare in Fashion Island, Newport Beach.

Two examples are a menu item called Gamberi Giannina, which is prawns baked on rock salt and served with fresh asparagus and a kiwi-lime dressing, and Riccioli d’Oro ai tre Crostacei, the recipe for which we feature today.

The first is named for Gianotti’s wife, Gianna, the second for his daughter, Jessica (“roughly translated, riccioli d’oro ai tre crostacei means ‘little curly haired blonde with three shellfish,’ ” he says). It’s a combination of shrimp, lobster and crab meat served on angel-hair pasta.

Gianotti served his apprenticeship in various establishments in Europe and had his own restaurant on the Italian Riviera before coming to the United States in 1986. “The owner of Sostanza in Los Angeles needed someone who knew everything about seafood,” says Gianotti, “and he called me and said, ‘Would you come to the United States and cook for me?’ I said, ‘Sure, send me the plane ticket.’ ”

And it was because he knew everything about seafood that Tutto-Mare (which means “everything from the sea”) landed him in 1989. “We have a very large menu,” he says, “featuring fresh fish, which we get daily. We even have Dover sole flown in from Europe every week.”

In Italy, he says, he was able to visit the wharves and select items every morning, “but here I depend on purveyors from Los Angeles to San Diego. And if it’s not the best, I send it right back; I won’t take it.”

The popular restaurant serves several thousand meals a week, so Gianotti says it’s important that the seven daily specials and other menu items are dishes that can be quickly prepared, particularly for the lunch crowd of shoppers and business people.

But “before you eat, you have to like with the eye,” he says, stressing the importance of presentation.

He suggests, for example, that the seafood in the following recipe not be mixed with the pasta. “Put the pasta in the middle of a plate and decorate it with the meats in a circle around the pasta,” he says. “Then put some nice fresh parsley right on top.

“Beautiful!”

RICCIOLI D’ORO AI TRE CROSTACEI

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

Meat of 4 lobster claws

12 tiger shrimp, shelled and deveined

1/2 cup Dungenese crab meat, shredded

1/2 teaspoon chili pepper, diced

1/4 cup white wine

1 pound angel hair pasta

2 1/4 cups spicy tomato sauce (see below)

In skillet, heat oil. Add garlic, lobster meat, shrimp and crab meat. Saute, stirring constantly, until shrimp and lobster are done (2-3 minutes; meat will turn pink). Add chili and white wine. Simmer until wine is reduced out. Bring pot of water to rolling boil and add pasta. Cook until done (about 3 minutes). Drain and mix in tomato sauce. Serve pasta on plates, ringed with the seafood. Garnish with fresh parsley. (4 servings)

Spicy Tomato Sauce

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 onion, chopped

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon thyme

32-ounce can cooked tomato pears or Roma tomatoes

In heavy pot, heat olive oil. Add garlic, onion, basil, rosemary and thyme. Cook until onions are golden brown. Add tomatoes and simmer for about 30 minutes.