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| Burrata cheese from Rosso in Santa Rosa |
I put together a list of several of the
“wow” dishes from some of my favorite restaurants in Sonoma County. None of
these restaurants are fancy. Several are in sort of odd locations. But they all have in common at least one
dish that is delicious and memorable. I’ll
be rolling out this list over the next few weeks so stay tuned.
Here is the first entry … Burrata cheese from Rosso Pizzeria.
Rosso Pizzeria has sort of taken
Sonoma County by storm. They opened their first restaurant in Santa Rosa a few
years ago and now have another restaurant in Petaluma and a thriving catering
business. Their mobile pizza oven is a fixture at winery “pick up parties” –
parties wineries have where their customers can pick up wine, taste a bit
(current releases, barrel samples and library wines are all fair game) and have
a bite to eat, preferably catered by the great Rosso team.
The pizza at Rosso is terrific but
what makes it special is the house-made burrata cheese. According to Wikipedia, the name burrata
means buttered in Italian and that’s a pretty good description of the cheese.
The outside of the cheese is a thin layer of fresh mozzarella that has been
rolled out. The thin outer layer is then
filled with a mixture of mozzarella cheese curds, fresh ricotta and
mascarpone cheeses, along with salt, pepper and olive oil.
The freshness hits you first. Then
the creaminess. Then the smoothness of the olive oil that you douse it with.
Then the pepperiness of the pepper. Eat it “neat”, no bread, no distractions.
Try not to lick the plate.
