Donato Enoteca owner reflects on 15 years in Redwood City

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Fifteen years after opening Donato Enoteca in Redwood City, Donato Scotti speaks with the same energetic passion as if he had opened the Italian restaurant yesterday.

Scotti grew up in Bergamo, Italy, attending culinary school in his home country before cooking in New York, Los Angeles and finally the Bay Area. He was the head chef at Il Fornaio in Walnut Creek and then Palo Alto before opening his first restaurant, the now-closed La Strada, in Palo Alto in 2004. In addition to Donato Enoteca, Scotti owns Cru Wine Bar & Shop in Redwood City and Donato & Co. in Berkeley. 

Donato Enoteca is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a special meal on June 20. I sat down with Scotti to look back on the past 15 years – the evolution of the Bay Area Italian food scene, the inspiration behind his anniversary menu, his proudest achievement with Donato Enoteca and more. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

Peninsula Foodist: How has Donato Enoteca evolved over 15 years?

Donato Scotti: My vision for Donato Enoteca has always been the same. I want it to be a true Italian restaurant the way I see it. I don’t want to serve the stuff that a Sicilian grandmother used to make. For me, it’s more like, ‘What is it that I would eat in a restaurant if I want to go have a good meal in Italy?’ The kitchen evolved in the past 15 years for sure. What we were doing back in 2009 is certainly very different from what we do now. Some dishes, though, I keep because they’re very unique, and if I take it off the menu, I get like a revolution against me, an uprising. 

At a certain point, we said, ‘We’re going to have to make our own salumi.’ So we started doing that. Fresh pasta, we’ve always made, but even dry pasta we make now. I always envisioned my restaurant being like, ‘You walk in. On your way out, if you want to buy something that you like, you should be able to.’ 

Also, I think that our wine program is a lot stronger. When we started, we didn’t have anybody who knew anything about wine except me and my sommelier. Now we have five sommeliers in the staff, and we offer to pay for sommelier courses. 

Peninsula Foodist: How has the Bay Area restaurant scene transformed over the last 15 years?

Donato Scotti: Fifteen years ago, you couldn’t go find burrata or formai de mut anywhere. Now everything is at the tip of your fingers. Fifteen years ago, if you went to an Italian restaurant, it was likely a generic Italian restaurant. Now you have these restaurants that are very specific to Neapolitan cuisine, to Sicilian cuisine, to Venetian cuisine. When I came to the United States 30 years ago, Italian restaurants had bricks of lasagna and spaghetti and meatballs, and now you hardly see any of those. I mean, go find spaghetti and meatballs now, it’s probably harder than finding formai de mut.

I also think the customers have evolved. The knowledge of Italian food from the people that come in the restaurant now, it’s like 100% more than what it was 15 years ago. (In 2009) nobody knew what burrata was. Now, everybody has it at home in their refrigerator. It’s beautiful because to me, it makes my job a lot easier to know that somebody will understand what we are trying to do.

Also, I think a lot of the costs that have increased dramatically over the past few years have changed the way restaurants operate as far as service. You have to adapt to what the increasing costs are.  

Peninsula Foodist: What is your greatest accomplishment in the 15 years running Donato Enoteca?

Donato Scotti: The biggest accomplishment I have was making it through COVID the way we did. The way we came up with all these ideas and actually executed it made me so proud of not only myself, but everybody that was with me. I said, ‘I have a job for everybody. I’m going to keep this place going with takeout, with cooking classes, we’re gonna create an online store, we’re going to start importing stuff, we’re going to start distributing stuff.’ By the end of the first year of the pandemic, this whole restaurant was packing and shipping. I wanted to keep as many people employed (as possible). I wanted to make sure that everybody had their family taken care of. 

Peninsula Foodist: What was the inspiration behind the menu for your 15th anniversary celebration dinner?

Donato Scotti: The casonsei alla bergamasca is a dish that I had when I had a restaurant in Palo Alto, but I never had it on the menu here. But it’s one of my favorite dishes, and it’s basically a pork-based ravioli that is made into a little boat shape. And then you pour brown butter, sage and guanciale (over the ravioli). 

The la grigliata (marinated and grilled beef, pork, chicken and vegetables with fresh herb sauce) is something that I grew up eating occasionally on Sunday, because growing up in a family of five, my father was a factory worker, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, we didn’t eat meat every day. So our Sunday meal was rabbit, but I couldn’t put rabbit on the menu for everyone, so I put the mixed grill, which would be like if we had a party, that’s what we would eat. 

And then this is my anniversary, so instead of putting dessert, I put a piece of cheese. I found a wheel of formai de mut, which is very rare to find in Bergamo, and it comes from the valley where I come from, which is Valle Brembana, where San Pelligrino is actually from. 

I wanted to put these things on the menu because they are things that I grew up eating, and they’re part of my town and my history. 

Peninsula Foodist: What does formai de mut taste like and why is it so special?

Donato Scotti: Think of comte but aged in caves and not as big. The cows graze at a higher altitude during the springtime. So then they graze on grass that grows after the rain and the snow has melted. So it’s rich with minerals. So the milk itself, it’s very rich. And it makes for incredible cheeses. It’s an expensive move, but it always pays off because the milk is a lot more rich and tasty. You don’t find a lot of it. I just came across one wheel and I said, ‘I’ll take it.’ 

Peninsula Foodist: What do you envision Donato Enoteca to be like in another 15 years?

Donato Scotti: Eventually we’re going to have to do a pretty big remodel, because 15 years in a restaurant I feel like is 150 for a normal business as far as wear and take. I’m not one to have a restaurant with QR codes. But I think probably it would become a little more casual, but not necessarily by lowering the expectation of the service, maybe just removing the tablecloths and doing nice tables. Make it more of an attractive and fun environment. Not because I want to, but because where the hospitality is going, it’s probably going to have to be tweaked. I think our wine list will always be one of our pulling points, no matter how many years down the line. The food has evolved over the past 15 years, so I think it’s going to keep evolving. But our goal is always to keep it very Italian. And that I hope that will never change. 

Donato Enoteca, 1041 Middlefield Road, Redwood City; 650-701-1000, Instagram: @donatoenoteca. Open Tuesday through Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4-9 p.m. and Friday through Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.