When I was a child, having dinner in a restaurant was reserved for very special occasions. My family ate out together once or twice a year. My parents went out without the kids another once or twice on their anniversary or my mother's birthday. It was, of course, part of any wife and/or mother's job to provide dinner every night, plus a special meal on Sundays. We've come a long way, baby. At the end of some weeks I look back and realize I've cooked only one or two dinners, and those were salad plus protein affairs. We rely on takeout, ethnic foods of one kind or another, and moderately priced local restaurants for fuel, sustenance and relaxation. So it's always a pleasure to discover a place whose raisons d'tre are to provide exactly those amenities.
Grazie Café on Novato's Grant Avenue has been in operation for three years, and owner/manager Renee Norman, co-owner Michelle Whiteside and chef Jose Vargas have served breakfast, lunch and dinner from the first. Their original intention was to provide a neighborhood restaurant in downtown Novato that was slightly upscale from the bars and diners that previously lined the street, but still casual, comfortable, family-friendly and moderately priced. All three had worked together at Shelley's Place down the street, which Whiteside had owned.
Renee Norman told me that for the past year or so they have been focusing on fine tuning their dinner service. At night, Grazie pulls out white tablecloths and napkins, and lights candles on the tables. With wineglasses to reflect the candlelight and attentive service from the young staff, the transformation from café to dinner house is quite effective.
My one wish was that the noise from the deli case could somehow be muffled. But the glass-fronted display came in handy later when we wanted a visual take on the desserts, which reside therein. And I have to admit that I noticed the hum of the motor considerably less once our first plates arrived and we tucked into our salads. Anyway, the whole problem is easily avoided by choosing one of the sidewalk tables during the warm weather months. Recently renovated Grant Avenue is picturesque and surprisingly peaceful most evenings.
Grazie serves much of the daytime menu into the dinner hours, adding antipasti, pastas and entrées to the salads, sandwiches and panini. There's a simple but adequate list of 27 wines priced between $21 a bottle, for Rosenblum Chateau La Paws white blend ($5.50 a glass) and $49 for a bottle of Bernardus Chardonnay. Most are offered by the glass. Corkage is $10. Other beverage choices include beer, American and Italian sodas, flavored and plain Pellegrino water, coffee and iced tea.
We started with crab cakes ($9.99); two chunky silver dollar croquettes served on a bed of spring mix. They tasted of the sea, with a hot pepper kick in the cakes themselves that was soothed by a squeeze of lemon juice and a drizzle of creamy roasted chipotle aioli. The cool, lightly dressed salad made a nice counterpoint, and the greens were tender and fresh.
When we placed the rest of our order, our server cautioned us that portions were generous and that the choices we had mentioned would be way too much food for two people. She allowed us to veer off the regular menu and ask if the roasted beet and chicken salad ($9.99), normally an entrée salad, could be simplified into a dinner salad by omitting the chicken and splitting it between us. She answered in the affirmative.
At half portions, the two plates that emerged from the kitchen were huge, piled high with impeccably fresh salad greens, nuggets of goat cheese, chunks of deep red beet, lightly candied pecans and slices of red onion, lightly tossed in a maple balsamic vinaigrette. I was impressed, having eaten more than my share of salads at much more expensive venues where I had to push wilted, less than appetizing greens around my plate. The greenery at Grazie was state-of-the-art. And, even more amazingly, since all entrées come with a cup of soup or a dinner salad, our bill reflected no charge for this lovely treat.
With the appetizers, I had a glass of Turnbull Oakville Sauvignon Blanc ($7.50), and my companion chose Two Tone Chardonnay from Napa ($7). I liked the gutsy Chard, which stood nicely with both the crab and the salad. My Sauvignon Blanc tasted flat, as though it had perhaps been refrigerated too long and lost a little of its zing.
For entrées, we chose shrimp scampi ($16.95), which is normally served with linguini. We had already ascertained that the pasta of the day, which accompanies many of the secondi, was angel hair, so I asked to have that substituted for the linguini. A big, white bowl full of garlicky prawns and al dente pasta emerged, bathed in a piquant caper sauce. The prawns themselves, however, were on the bland side. Farmed crustaceans just don't have the same flavor as the prohibitively expensive wild variety. It's sad to think that there may be whole generations who will never know how a wild prawn tastes.
From the Secondi, we chose sole meunire ($15.95), two tender egg-battered fillets served with crisp sautéed vegetables over a bed of capellini, and topped with a lemon, caper and olive oil sauce very similar to the one on my plate. The sauce man groused that he didn't have enough, but since my pasta had extra, we spooned some of it over his and things worked out splendidly.
With the entrées, I switched to a glass of Merryvale Starmont Chardonnay ($7.50). Grazie pours generous glasses of wine, in large, heavy, long-stemmed glasses. Sipping from them is satisfying.
Possibly because Grazie stays open all day and therefore draws a coffee and pastry crowd in the afternoons, the dessert menu is extensive. All are priced at $4.95. We were replete, but wanted to try one, so we asked which were housemade, to narrow the field. It was a toss-up between butterscotch pudding and tiramisu, but the mascarpone won the toss. Grazie's version is heavier than some, and although the menu lists mascarpone, it tastes more like cream cheese. The plate had also been dribbled with a sticky chocolate caramel sauce, whose cloying sweetness overpowered the delicate flavors of the mousse.
I liked Grazie's lack of pretension, generous portions, attention to detail and very friendly, responsive service. The food is simple and satisfying. The kitchen back there can't be large, but the menu is so I'm guessing they're accomplishing all that with a minimum of resources and a maximum of efficiency and commitment. Grazie…mille grazie!
