Food-O-File

After reading about the recently released independent film Big Night everywhere from Food Arts magazine to The New York Times, I was very eager to attend the special "food press" screening at the Dobie Theatre before the movie opened to the public. The advance press coverage had compared Big Night to other films I'd loved -- Babette's Feast, Like Water for Chocolate, and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman -- and created high expectations about both the quality of the movie and the part that food would play in the overall story. I thoroughly enjoyed Big Night but it didn't remind me of the earlier films. However, the movie's authentic restaurant setting did evoke strong memories of two Austin restaurants. The first, Fonda San Miguel, fought a difficult battle at the outset to educate the public about the authentic cuisine of interior Mexico in the face of locally-loved Tex-Mex. The second, Speranza's, was a small, charming Italian trattoria lovingly operated by the talented husband and wife team of Michael and Hallie Speranza during the late Seventies and early Eighties.

At the beginning of the movie, a patron in the small Paradise restaurant argues with Segundo Pilaggi (Stanley Tucci) about the seafood risotto entrée she's received. She complains that it is not at all what she expected and demands a side order of spaghetti and meatballs because in Italian restaurants in 1950s America, main dishes came with side orders of spaghetti and meatballs. Segundo relays this request to his brother Primo (Tony Shalhoub), an uncompromising purist who is only willing to prepare the traditional, authentic dishes of his homeland. This scene reminded me of watching Tex-Mex-addicted Austinites open the menu at Fonda San Miguel in 1976 and say, "Where's the number one enchilada dinner? What do you mean black beans? What kind of a Mexican restaurant doesn't serve chips and hot sauce and nachos?" San Miguel eventually added nachos, chips and salsa to their menu as a compromise to the Texas market, much to the consternation of Diana Kennedy, the famous Mexican food authority who acted as menu consultant for the restaurant. The longtime successful restaurant struggled for a full two years before good word of mouth and extensive coverage from publications such as Texas Monthly finally made it a hit. I left the theatre wishing that the fictitious Paradise restaurant had that kind of time to succeed.

The majority of Big Night takes place in the kitchen and dining room of the Paradise. Each time the camera panned around the restaurant, I was transported back to my days of dining in Speranza's, at one of the few tables intimately set in what then was truly a warehouse district at the corner of Fourth & Colorado. Hallie Speranza ran the front of the house while chef Michael Speranza turned out exquisite authentic Italian dishes in the small kitchen. Periodically, they would close up and journey to Italy to study with the legendary Marcella Hazan and other cooking teachers. After Speranza's closed for the last time, I lost track of the proprietors and only recently discovered they'd been working in Austin during the intervening years. Hallie now trains early childhood teachers and Michael is involved in the construction business. Michael's most recent stint in the kitchen was spent at Las Manitas where sisters Cynthia and Lydia Perez were pleased to have him turning out lunch specials. "We still have the dream of having another restaurant," Hallie said during our phone conversation, "but the business has changed so much that small, affordable locations are hard to find." While lower cost real estate is scarce, imported ingredients and specialty produce are much more readily available. "Back then, we had a hard time just finding decent olive oil," recalls Hallie. These days, savvy Austin restaurant diners welcome authentic ethnic cuisines and shop for international ingredients at local grocery chains. A restaurant the caliber of the Paradise would be very popular here, I'd wager. In lieu of the Paradise, local favorite Basil's will be preparing some of the dishes from the movie during its month-long run at the Dobie. Owner Marshall Slacter reports that they'll definitely be serving the risotto and they may prepare a rendition of the show-stopping Timpano, a Calabrian specialty that serves as the film's banquet centerpiece. Check with Basil's (477-5576) about the availability of the Big Night dishes during October.