CUGINI'S (Cousins) - An Italian Eatery(?)
We have never considered a restaurant as a Faux Pas. However, after a trip to a new Italian Pizzeria -Trattoria in our home town, we decided that a restaurant as bad as this described a new catagory - a Global Faux Pas. It is, in our opinion, a restaurant that should not have opened, because it is a mistake. Generally speaking, Faux Pas are mistakes, or as defined in Webster's..."False remark; A social blunder; error in etiquette: Tactless act or remark..." We enlarge upon this definition to include a tactless food preparation act as a social blunder in that it effects that part of society interested in authentic Italian foods.
While we are describing our impressions of Cugini's, a restaurant local to our area of California, we feel certain that there are, unfortunately, many restaurants in the United States which are "cugini" to the one described here. As you read this, think of that restaurant, and the kind of food it delivers to customers.
What made this particular experience so disappointing is that we had hoped that the proprietor, an Italian American, who has operated a successful restaurant in our area for 11 years, would open a much needed authentic restaurant. He and his cousin didn't.
Cugini's advertises itself as an authentic Italian eatery specializing in healthy foods: Foods made from the finest ingredients obtained from the local farmers and merchants. The pizze (plural of the Italian word 'pizza') would be made in a wood burning oven and the restaurant would feature breads and focacce (plural of the Italian word 'focaccia') as well.
Actually there is a wood burning pizza oven, a high quality one in fact, for the thin crusted pizze. There is also a large deck oven where the thick Roman style pan pizze are made. A variety of other dishes are also made in one oven or the other.
Like a wanderer who manages to get to the next sand dune, and then fantasizes that just over the hill water would be found, we entered the restaurant with high hopes. Maybe, just maybe, a good new restaurant had arrived. Heading directly to the pizza display area resulted in an immediate bursting of our hopeful bubble. There was, as our wanderer probably also found, no respite over the hill. There were only thick, oily pizze in large pans. Each pizza was smothered in American style mozzarella cheese and other toppings. It was clear that the credo here is "if a little of something is good, a lot more is better".
The olive combination pizza included hundreds, maybe even thousands, of sliced black olives direct from a can delivered by a restaurant supply house. At least that is what they looked like to us. Perhaps the science of genetic engineering has developed a fresh olive that is sliced on the tree and has been developed to look just like those canned olives sold in most markets. So much for the advertised fresh foods and local produce jargon printed on the menu.
From this display we moved to the counter where the thin crusted pizze, which were to be baked in the wood fired oven, were being prepared. Alas, they were formed with a raised crust. We had not the heart to ask the proprietor why the raised crust was added given the propensity for a properly made dough to rise at the edges while in the oven. Perhaps the built up dough crust was insurance against a dough not properly made, or a pizzaiola who hadn't the faintest idea of just how one forms a pizza. At this point, we really did not want to stay much longer as we could both feel a deep depression and pall clutching at our collective psyches. Disappointment combined with anger at yet another pseudo Italian eatery made the vinegar laden air even more difficult to breath.
On the way out, we looked at the prepared dishes in the cases. We momentarily considered ordering something, but decided that after almost 30 years of eating and making pizza and Italian food, we were no longer young enough to try to digest the lackluster and fairly unappetizing food we saw.
We went next door for a coffee to see what, if anything, could rationalize the existence of this restaurant. We ultimately decided that there was nothing we could tell the owners to explain our frustration and disappointment. Most likely neither the proprietors nor many of their clientele had ever tasted authentic pizza or Trattoria food as served either in Italy or in fine Italian-American restaurants. How were they to know that what they were participating in was no more than another nail on the proverbial coffin of high quality, nourishing Italian food? How were they to know that it is just as easy to make food properly as it is to totally screw it up? From a budgetary perspective alone, cheese costs could be reduced dramatically without effecting income. Ditto for the amount of tomato sauce and other toppings used.
We had previously met one of the owners of this place, and considered going back to tell him what we are describing in this Faux Pas. We realized that this would not be very fruitful because the place was busy. He was obviously making money. People were filling a need to eat "Italian" food at a reasonable price, and nothing we could say would most likely change anything. If we can find his e-mail address on his restaurant's web site, we will forward this article to him. Otherwise, we simply have to accept the fact that we were witnessing an almost perfect example of "the greater fool theory", i.e. I may be a fool for opening this travesty, but there are a lot more, even greater fools who will eat here!
This Faux Pas is, as stated above, a collective one. What makes it more problematic than others in this series is that each dish is prepared in a manner unknown to any Italian restaurateur, or any one who actually believes in authenticity. In many ways it far surpasses any previous Faux Pas, because each day the same pizze and dishes are prepared using the same terrible ingredients, in the same lackluster way. The process continuously repeats itself. It is a joke, and the joke is on us.
Follow-up Note - Five months later: It is with sadness that we report Cugini's is still open and thriving. As a much wiser man said many years ago, "There's no accounting for taste". Next will probably be a string of Cugini's across America, followed by an Initial Public Offering (IPO), followed in a few years by this new chain merging with a conglomerate. Meanwhile the owners of the original Cugini's will be free to develop yet another version of their vision of Italian food....God help us!
Last updated on: 01/05/01 02:39:13 PM