Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by George Sakkestad Aldo Maresca looks forward to La Strada's first winemaker dinner. La Strada offers rich Italian fare and winemaker dinners By Suzanne Cristallo It's been two years since Aldo Maresca opened his La Strada restaurant in Los Gatos and three since he left his home in Sorrento, Italy. The following he has built owes as much to his robust "benvenuto" as to his ambrosial Italian fare. Another reason to visit the cottage-like eatery across from Los Gatos High School: Aldo's first winemaker dinner with the Monterey County winery, Paradiso Springs on Nov. 17. It will be a good excuse for epicureans to spend a few hours savoring five courses of Aldo's finest--special dishes he has created based on his Sorrentino heritage--accompanied by a different wine for each course. "I would like winemaking dinners to become regular events," says Barbara Maresca, who runs the restaurant while husband Aldo creates the fare. She has also been experimenting with other special events, like their Halloween party, which attracted a full house of costumed patrons, and a recent Opera Night featuring a tenor. "I made a mistake having Opera Night on a Saturday, our busiest night," Barbara says. "The poor tenor tried to be expressive, only to find his grand gestures interfered with waiters and trays. It was pretty funny, actually." She will be picking mellower Sundays for future musical evenings, when a mix of contraltos, sopranos and tenors will sing Italian opera for two hours. Meanwhile, the Nov. 17 winemaker dinner will start with Norwegian smoked salmon and tuna mousse made with cream and capers and an egg mousse for appetizers, accompanied by a pinot blanc. The second course features handmade lobster ravioli in a champagne cream sauce and home-grown herbs with a 1996 Chardonnay. Then comes Aldo's homemade sausage of veal and pork sautéed in white wine with broccoli rapé and a 1996 syrah. The main course will be a roasted veal chop stuffed with prosciutto, bleu cheese and spinach in a pinot noir sauce, sautéed fresh autumn vegetables and a 1995 pinot noir. The pièce de résistance is torta caprese: a rich chocolate cake and pulverized almonds in a zabaglione sauce of raspberries and confectioner's sugar paired with a Souzao port. Guests will be treated to all of this coupled with Aldo's warm presence and some shared experiences from 25 years of grape-growing by the vintners, the Richard Smith family. Cost is $75 per person. As a reason for having special events this coming spring, Barbara says she wants to provide medical funding for rescued stray animals. La Strada restaurant has become a magnet for a variety of transient cats who find shelter for birthing their kittens in the restaurant attic. To date, the Marescas' feline heroics include: rushing a hypothermic kitten who had sought warmth under a customer's parked car to the vet; and cutting a hole in the kitchen wall to release a kitten fallen between the wall studs from the attic above (they call him Wally). They've also adopted three kittens and feed a variety of ferals who await "previously sampled" delicacies from the night's dining. "There doesn't seem to be a financial break for people wanting to provide emergency medical care for stray animals, so we'd like to raise money for that with special dinners," Barbara says. Aldo's La Strada, 210 E. Main St., Los Gatos. Open for lunch Tues.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.- 2 p.m. Dinner Tues.-Sun. 5-9:30 p.m.; Fri. and Sat. until 10 p.m. 395-5704. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, November 11, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.