Republica in Berkley serves up comfort food classics with 'Loaf House' event

So good. Republica in Berkeley is rebranding as a one-night-only meatloaf house. Sorry. I know. You had to do it. Showcasing five creative ways to make this meatloaf with ten steakhouse-inspired sides. Chef Petro in the house with us now to talk about how you're going to elevate this ground beef. Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me. Meatloaf is, as my old mentor Joe Lopez, who is an Italian, would say is a tradition of the everyman. I love it. Roman roots. It's underrated, isn't it? Yes. Because it can be really good. Yeah, 100%. So my thought process was for Republica, that one-night event on Sunday we'll have, is that let's do a steakhouse. And let's do our meatloaf, which is our classic. Now 13 years on the menu, always rotating back on the fall. But we've got some twists and turns for this weekend as well. How do you make the perfect meatloaf? Oh, yeah. Perfect. You start with vegetables, actually. It's not in the name, but you're going to start with your peppers, your onions, your celery. You're going to roast it down, and you're going to puree it. If you don't puree it, you can chop finely. But basically what you've seen here is that I've reduced it so there's no liquid. And from there, you can do whatever you want. Salt, pepper. For our purposes here, we do a lot of dry spices, including cumin, paprika, garlic, white pepper. and so we try to get as much flavor as possible because this is our opportunity in that loaf to get all the flavors we want we don't use ketchup on our ma's meatloaf at republica so we put the ketchup actually in the mix and you can bring that in there once you've added these seasonings don't ever forget the salt you're going to take your meat which is usually a four to one ratio of beef and pork for our meatloaf okay and gluten-free kruka or gluten-free breadcrumbs Important, we like to keep our meatloaf gluten-free so that everyone can partake and enjoy Good, then in goes the hot vegetables now at this point people say don't put the hot vegetables on the cold meat, don't do it but you're gonna be going right in the oven anyways, yeah and what you're actually doing is taking that heat and rendering some of that fat so you can mix it and loaf it after it's mixed and loafed, put in the oven 350 to about an hour, an hour and a half and you get something which is resembling this extended, this is a slice now what we do in restaurants to make the experience a little bit more desirable, yeah is that we put a sear on it and so we'll take that sear both sides, yeah that's next level now are you you're mixing that all together, yep all together okay i'm following this because we need, yeah we need new dinner recipes at our house and this is one that i think we're gonna, now i think what's key here for your meatloaf night is the sides that you're serving with it, right we are so some of the sides that we have are steakhouse classics for this sunday okay uh you know such as mac and cheese you've got a presence of an artichoke and spinach dip which is classic americana, yes we have also got some uh really surprising like adding a shrimp to the top of your meatloaf or adding crab and uh oh wow so the idea is that we have this elevated experience with something that's very humble what do we have what's this so i brought some of our fall menu uh focus points there is our sage cream risotto which is new to the fall and we have a pork croquette in the middle there with a pink lady spicy apple compote uh lamb shank which is new to the menu so that's roasted root vegetables and uh um beautiful uh new zealand lamb shank our greek salad and a revolution our mainstays that have been on the menu for 14 years now so chef i have to ask about this cauliflower which is the size of my head here i've never seen anything like that is saying something i've never seen anything like that one it has not that big but two see ladies i think it is welcome to october and beautiful cauliflower this is the time of year that you want to have these vegetables what do you do is that how it's served we serve it yeah so uh through a process we whole roast it thank you so much and then we serve it with a walnut garlic spread which is uh so that dish you see there is an entirely vegan experience as well so we're cutting into it we're not going to let it triumph this yeah we're also not going to we're also not going to play around with who he is and what what this wants to represent so it is a cauliflower yeah yeah and i have my eye on this guy down at the end here yeah this bread situation yeah what is that this is our pita bread okay and so that gets served with our uh cheese spread but the uh the history of the pita bread is uh storied and it roots back to my wife's family Mitches in Kiwibu Castle Lake where we take that original recipe and we made it into a flatbread for the restaurant Oh I'm coming to see you I might even be coming in today this is uh lights out now uh the menu the meatloaf is happening Sunday yes the reservation strongly recommended do you have to watch Old School to get the Will Ferrell my meatloaf no mom's meatloaf is every day throughout the fall and winter so you'll see that don't need to come in on Sundays for it please don't come in screaming that you can if you want you're good with it i'm good with it where are you in Berkeley Tell everybody. 1999 Coolidge Highway, just a quarter mile north of 11 Mile. Sounds good. Very good. It's time to hear from the people next. This is delicious. Thank you. Thank you, Chef. Appreciate it. We'll be right back.