Head to Tail Dinner at Incanto
The Head To Tail Dinner- a Chris Cosentino tradition since 2006. One of the things that attracts me more to Cosentino’s food is the philosophy behind it- and I actually really love the entire concept of head to tail, no food going to waste, and so on. My grandma is perfectly aligned with this line of thoughts, and so it is that every year when we kill the pig we never waste a single thing the beast yields. Hurray for Cosentino, then, and the enthusiastic way he embraces the concept of Del maiale non si butta via niente (there is no waste in pig)! Here’s my chronicle of Incanto’s Head to Tail dinner, 2009 version.
This year was my first Head to Tail experience, thanks to the delightful encouragement and dinner company offered by Mike of GastronoMichael. I was not disappointed, and although at times I was wary of some of the ingredients, reality is I LOVED the dinner. I do not think you’d ever have so many offals during the course of one single evening in Italy, but nevertheless this was an excellent chance to try my hand at some… unusual dishes, and I have to say they were all hits!
First course was venison heart tartare with foie gras and ciccioli brioche. Ciccioli brioche is what I would call legare il cane con la salsiccia (tie the dog with the sausage)- pur ciccioli inside pain brioche?? That’s an evil-although utterly delicious- idea!
Goose intestines with fava beans and artichokes- an interesting mix of pasta, fava beans bitter greens and… soup?? It was delicious to scoop up the moisture with the delicious Incanto bread!
The witty named big brain and little brain with asparagus- while the big brain was good, the little brain was out of this world!! BTW, little brain?? Hilarious!
Cordedda with green peas, mint and sheep’s milk polenta. Cordedda was a weird dish- spleen, liver and kidney wrapped in lamb’s stomach and grilled- not bad, but different from what I was expecting. Cordedda as I know of it (never had it before!) is braided lamb intestines, but this was more of an offal festival!
Coffee and Doughnuts- blood and espresso, pork liver and chocolate. This was a total surprise of a dessert- and possibly my favorite dish! I was really nervous about it to begin with- I was traumatized as a child by my grandmother version of a chocolate cake with pork’s blood, and I wasn’t thrilled to rewalk the old path. But this?? This was delicious!! A great ending to a great dinner!
Incanto Restaurant & Wine Bar
1550 Church St
San Francisco, CA 94131
(415) 641-4500
Filed under: Restaurants, San Francisco
[...] passionate, and more detailed in his food adventures!! Mike was my fellow table partner for the Head to Tail dinner at Incanto, and hopefully of many more culinary ventures in days to [...]