The Omaha Metro Food & Wine Gazette Aug 2025

The Omaha Metro

Event Report:

Sipping Into Summer the Italian Way Upcoming Events

What’s New

If you invite a guest to an event, don’t just forward them the invitation directly. Copy and paste the menu only, then email it to the guest. Registering and payment for guests must go through a member. If you want the guest to pay themselves, ask John Matthews to send them an invoice after you, the member, have signed them up under your name. We have had guests forward the invite onto their friends, who then try to sign up when they are not a member. This leads to disruption trying to figure out which guest goes with what member.

The word Aperitif is derived from the Latin “aperire,” meaning “to open,” and serves to whet the appetite before dinner.

Event Report: Sipping Into Summer the Italian Way

Story

It is always interesting to try an event at a restaurant new to the Branch. We had a fun dinner at Via Farina Regency Landing with an Italian theme. Translated into English, Via Farina would be called Flour Street. Their specialty is making their own from-scratch pasta, breads, and Neapolitan pizza, baked in their wood fired oven. I had been to the Via Farina at 10th and Pacific, founded by Le Bouillion’s chef Paul Kulik and Maven Social Group, but the chain of two is now owned by just Maven Social.

by Tom Murnan. Photos by Tom Murnan

Rather long and narrow, the restaurant was full and noisy! I discovered when I got there that the staff had thrown away most of the empty bottles, so pictures of the wine labels is less than usual. We started with an assortment of cured Mangalitsa Prosciutto, Beef Bresaola, Seasonal Melon, Mint and Olive Oil. Basically, all the above ingredients on a long-handled spoon, this was a tasty, if not small first bite. But this is only part of the story. As one reached the midpoint of the restaurant, on top of a glass case, there is a hind leg of Mangalitsa pork sitting out for everyone to see. Mangalitsa is a particular breed of woolly haired pig originally raised for the Hapsburg royal family. And prosciutto was a method to preserve meat before refrigeration involving salt curing and air drying. The pork was aged for 18 months. I would have liked a bit more of that piece of deliciousness.

The First Course was Coccoli Caprese. Coccoli (literally “cuddles” in Italian) are fried balls of bread. In our case, it was fried sourdough sitting along a Genovese Basil Salad, with smoked Burrata cheese. Burrata has an outer shell of mozzarella that encases a creamy, soft interior of stracciatella and cream. Stracciatella is a mixture of shredded mozzarella and fresh cream. There was a lot going on in these ingredients, as I was finding out. The Heirloom Tomato was made of Sicilian cherry tomato, along with chutney, sugar and apple cider. It made for a complex salad, and you used the fried bread to mop up the sauce. Our Jean Biecher Sommerberg Alsace Grand Cru Riesling 2019 was a nice wine match. Our Second Course was Foie Gras Culurgiones, a Sardinian ravioli-like stuff pasta. In our case, the pasta was colored green and surrounded the umami foie gras mousse. Served warm, it was excellent, surrounded by Pickled Strawberry, Braised Rhubarb, Spelt (looks like a seed but is a grain of wheat that has a nutty taste, soaked and dried overnight, then toasted), Pink Peppercorn, and Crème Fraîsch. The Castello di Monsanto Chianti Classico Reserva 2016 was soft, mildly tannic, but somewhat innocuous and unremarkable. The Third Course was our entrée. Veal Osso Buco was expertly cooked, with a generous amount of veal surrounding the bone. The sauce consisted of Fortified Stock, Black Truffle, Red Wine and an unusual way to cook arborio rice. Called Grana Padano Risotto al Salto, it was in a 3½ inch disc with crunchy rice on either side, but soft inside as it had been finished in a hot pan. Dessert was a new recipe to me: a lemon candy shell made with white chocolate, filled with poached lemon and Yuzu Ganace. Yuzu looks like a round lemon that originally came from China, and is a blend of tartness like a lemon, sweetness like a mandarin, and bitterness like a grapefruit, with a powerful aroma. Yuzu ganace is like an ice cream. With this we had two Limoncellos to compare. I asked for the recipe but haven’t received it by press time.

This was a complex and wonderful dinner. Thanks to Executive Chef John Rea, Chef de Cuisine Pat Ratigan, Manager Madison Taylor and our hosts Susan Rauth and Julie Jobeun for a great evening out.