– by Lara Gladych –
This is the fourth in a six-part series of profiles on some of the Saanich Peninsula’s wonderful restaurants and pubs.
I’m at The Latch Inn and Restaurant, and owner Luigi Cisotto and I are meeting for the second time. It’s mid-morning one day in July, and it’s just the two of us sitting down together this time, though he owns and operates the business with his wife, Valeria.
We’re friends enough now that without much conversation, Luigi pours me a glass of sparkling water and leaves me alone at a table overlooking the patio, while he disappears into the kitchen to prepare something for me. I look outside and see that there are tables still set up outside from a family reunion held here the night before.
When Luigi rejoins me, he carries with him an antipasto plate and a sausage dish. I’ve heard Luigi talk in the past about his house-cured meats and homemade sausage. Capicolla, seasoned with chili and paprika, and prosciutto lay at the top of the plate. Next to the meat is a preserved smelt. He catches the smelts himself up-island. There’s also tomato and mozzarella caprese, the tomatoes fresh from their garden, and Valeria’s roasted and marinated yellow peppers. There are olives and artichokes, Valeria’s sundried tomatoes, a radish and a warm onion tart. It’s a lovely selection, and Luigi says that these cold plates are particularly popular during the hot summer months.
The antipasto plate varies, and sometimes includes asparagus and red beets, sometimes Parmesan or smoked cheese. The sausage, made with just the right amount of fennel – he’s careful not to add too much – is served with a tomato, onion and white wine sauce. Simple and delicious.
Luigi is in the midst of preparing eggplant parmigiana for dinner that night. He brings out the sliced eggplant to show me how he is essentially sweating out “the bad water,” as he calls it. This involves a sprinkling of kosher salt that draws out the water, which then drains out into a pan beneath. Fascinating.
Lamb stew is also simmering for dinner. The neck meat is the nicest, he tells me, as it is the most tender. It’s a tomato-based stew, for which Luigi uses imported canned tomatoes from Naples. Valeria has her own lamb specialty, says Luigi. Again, made with neck meat, sour cream, her own blend of herbs, and spices she brought with her
from Romania.
While I eat, we talk about the abundance of food they are able to bring into the restaurant straight from their farm during the summer months, and right into late September or early October. Chicken, produce, herbs…as much as they can grow themselves, they endeavor to. His garden and the vegetables it yields are what Luigi loves most about summertime.
Speaking of the farm, he remembers that he has a homemade cherry jam in the kitchen, so he runs back to get it. I sample the jam, and he describes the cherry brandy crème brulée they prepare. Cherries marinated in brandy, and placed three-deep in each crème brulée dish. I wish he had one of those ready for sampling.
The rooms have been more or less full so far this summer. A guest comes downstairs while I sit with Luigi, and seems so at home, that I momentarily lapse in my understanding that he is just a visitor and not part of the establishment.
Because I’m so fascinated by the curing process, Luigi gives me a brief overview of how he prepares not only his meats, but also how he preserves the smelts. There’s a lot of kosher salt involved, that much I take away. There’s a slab of marble to press the meat, and continuous maintenance over the course of the year it takes for the meat to cure. It’s a little different with the smelts. I’m so wrapped up in listening to him describe it that I abandon my note-taking. It’s all very impressive to me, and another endearing example of what makes Luigi and Valeria and their establishment so special.
That’s what this place is to me: special. I love my visits with the Cisottos, and hope that you’ll find your way here too.
The Latch Inn and Restaurant, 2328 Harbour Rd, Sidney, 250.656.4015
