Chorney-Booth: A cluster of new Italian restaurants occupies The Oliver building

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Italian food comes in many delicious forms, from ultra-casual pizzerias and rustic pasta restaurants to high-end diners serving delicately prepared seafood and prime cuts of meat. Recognizing that no restaurant can even come close to showcasing the breadth of Italian cuisine, Vintage Group has created five new Italian concepts that exist under one lofty roof. All of the restaurants opened earlier this summer inside The Oliver, a residential building on the corner of 10th Avenue and 5th Street SW.

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Initially conceived as an Italian food hall, later modified to fit the building’s design, the five brands occupy almost the entire first floor of the building. Enter through the front door and to one side of the reception desk you will find the elegant Fleetwood Lounge cocktail bar, on the other side is the Pazzi pizzeria, and behind it is the Treno coffee and prosecco bar, the Italian market Luca Mercato and Luca, an Italian restaurant. full service.

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Calgary has seen a number of Italian venues open this year, and while the novelty of having them all together is interesting (and particularly helpful if you live in The Oliver), what makes this development really exciting is the involvement of culinary director Giuseppe Di Gennaro. . As the culinary force behind some of Calgary’s most missed Italian restaurants, including Il Sogno, Capo, Borgo and, more recently, Cotto, Di Gennaro is the kind of chef who makes serious restaurants go dizzy. Lance Hurtubise of The Vintage Group jokes that he has been trying to hire the chef for the last 20 years.

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“We really wanted to raise the bar in the city when it comes to Italian food,” says Hurtubise. “All of the fancier eating places are down a bit during COVID, while more casual dining has arrived. We want to bring back that high-level experience.”

While the food throughout the Oliver is very good (not to be overlooked the contemporary take on Neapolitan pizza at Pazzi, fresh sandwiches from the mercato, and pastries at Treno), Di Gennaro’s talent is on display. in Luca. Designed by Paul Lavoie Interior Design, Luca is an elegant room with a large open kitchen in the center (the surrounding bar stools are the best seats in the house) and dazzling Art Deco-inspired trim. Waiters rush by in formal white jackets, offering impeccable service that matches the opulence of the room.

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The food is even more impressive, with mouthwatering entrees like tender calamari strips with lemon artichoke tartar sauce ($18) and a fresh tomato salad topped with a creamy mound of burrata shipped from Italy ($28). The pasta section is small but mighty with concoctions like garganelli topped with sweet duck confit and sweet onions ($29), offering a much more complex flavor profile than the description suggests. The kitchen swings big with its larger-format dishes, including a perfectly juicy saltimbocca veal chop in a white wine reduction ($55), a 30-ounce bone-in Bistecca Fiorentina with duck-fat roasted potatoes ( $155) and an ultra-rich lobster risotto for two with mascarpone and fresh tarragon ($70). These heavy plates are certainly extravagant, but they are perfect for special occasions and can be shared. On less fancy nights, sitting at the kitchen bar with a plate of wild mushroom fettuccini ($27) and lemon curd ricotta fritters ($12) for dessert would feel just as special. Eating at Luca doesn’t have to be complicated.

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“Italian food is simple. People think that high-end food needs 25 ingredients on a plate, but that is not the case with Italian food,” says Di Gennaro. “The modern part is the presentation. We make everything look a little cleaner and different from an everyday Italian restaurant. Our flavors are strong; there is no masquerade going on.”

Luca and its sister restaurants are located in The Oliver at 524 10th Ave. SW and the restaurant can be reached at 403-261-1777 or via lucayyc.com. Luca is open daily for dinner with lunch service coming soon.

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Congratulations to Timothy James Bleau of Deane House and Ben Thompson of Orchard, two local sous chefs heading to the Young Chefs Academy Competition in Toronto later this month. Both will compete against eight other young chefs from October 23 to 25, showcasing their signature dishes in a cooking competition. The winning Canadian finalist will advance to the final round to compete against chefs from around the world in the grand finale in Milan, Italy, early next year. Good luck, young chefs!

And in less happy news, the Silver Inn, the iconic Calgary restaurant credited with inventing ginger beef, has announced it will be closing after 47 years of operation. The owners will go into their well-deserved retirement, with their last day of service on October 9. In a Facebook post, the restaurateurs hinted that the restaurant will resurface in another guise in the future, but for now it has a little over a week to make one last meal.

Elizabeth Chorney-Booth can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @elizaboothy or Instagram at @elizabooth.