In Chef’s Role, Actor Salutes His Sicilian Family

When I heard that actor Vincent Schiavelli would be cooking a Sicilian menu last Thursday at Alto Palato, I immediately made a reservation for four.

The familiar character actor, who has appeared in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Ghost” and “Amadeus,” among other films, is a wonderful cook and author of two books about Sicilian cuisine.

The first, “Papa Andrea’s Sicilian Table: Recipes and Remembrances of My Grandfather,” reconstructs the dishes young Schiavelli learned at his grandfather’s side in Brooklyn. The second, “Bruculinu, America: Remembrances of Sicilian-American Brooklyn, Told in Stories and Recipes,” part memoir, part cookbook, recounts growing up in that neighborhood.

Papa Andrea, however, wasn’t just another grandfather who enjoyed cooking. Before he emigrated from Polizzi Generosa in north-central Sicily to America, he had been among the last in the long tradition of monzu, master chefs who worked for noble families of Sicily and Naples. So the young Schiavelli had quite a teacher.

Thursday’s prix fixe menu began with white eggplant marinated in lemon and extra-virgin olive oil and scattered with shavings of pecorino cheese. The raw, thinly sliced eggplant was incredibly delicious--earthy and green.

Then there was a delicate pasta dish of ditali (short ribbed pasta) sauced with fava beans, baby artichokes, asparagus and peas perfumed with wild fennel.

For the main course, Schiavelli braised shoulder lamb chops in white wine and onions, and finished them with cherry tomatoes. Wonderful, really. The flavorful shoulder is for some reason rarely served in restaurants. He paired it with carrots infused with clove and rolled in drawn butter.

I wanted to eat the whole menu over again, it was that good.

Looking quite the chef, Schiavelli did a turn around the room, fielding compliments and explaining the dishes to anyone who asked.

To most of L.A., Sicilian food is a cipher. Even Celestino Drago, with his longtime following, wasn’t able to make a go of his Sicilian restaurant, L’Arancino. But Schiavelli is proposing not Sicilian 101, but graduate courses in intricate and remarkably subtle Sicilian cuisine with its Greek, Roman, Arabic, Norman, French and Spanish influences.

This is just the beginning: Schiavelli will present a Sicilian menu every Thursday night (that is, whenever he’s not away filming). Tonight’s, for example, is baked warm zucchini flowers stuffed with mushroom-flavored bechamel, pasta in a roasted sweet red pepper sauce enhanced with pancetta and garlic, and veal shoulder roast marinated and baked in Marsala wine with onion and black peppercorns.

At $35 a person for three courses, not including tax and tip, that’s quite a deal and worth getting out to savor the tastes of Sicily.

Alto Palato, 755 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood; (310) 657-9271. Vincent Schiavelli three-course menu $35 a person, not including tax or tip; call for menu. Thursday nights only. (The restaurant’s regular menu is also available.)