Roswell dining spot serves fresh Tuscan dishes

Really excited about this week's In the Nest guest. Valentina Astria Toscana is an authentic Tuscan-style Italian restaurant in Roswell. They have family-made recipes, family scratch recipes from Florence, family-run, a warm atmosphere. The GM, Johnny, is here with me. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. We've got such a spread here. As you guys can see, it all looks amazingly plated. I mean, even the cocktails, the tomatoes even look amazing. We're going to go through making some pasta, how you guys can maybe do that at home. But first, I want to talk about, you know, obviously the restaurant, this business. What has it meant for you to be a part of this place? It means the world to me because it's a family operated. My dad's the owner and eventually he's going to step away and pass it on to me, which I'm ready for. Excited. Yeah, yeah, that'll be awesome. I know you guys also had a kitchen fire earlier this year, so a little bit of adversity you guys have dealt with. But you have this big grand reopening, lots of community support over in Roswell. Talk about that process of coming back from that and the love that you've received since then. Well, at first, we were all in shock when it happened. It was a Saturday night, primetime, 80 people in the restaurant. We got everyone out safely. And then the fire department came, put everything out, and we were just in shock. Yeah. Wow. I can't imagine. But we got a ton of support from the community, which really meant a lot to us. It made us want to keep going, to reopen quicker. And we opened in four months, it took us to get re-opened. That's amazing. That's actually amazing. My dad was there every day just hassling people, come on, fix it, fix it. Sometimes you've got to do that with contractors and whatnot. Now, that's an amazing turnaround. I mean, also just the support you guys have had from the community, it means a lot to the people around you and obviously to the people inside of this restaurant. Just being around you guys as we were kind of setting up for this segment, it's clear that it's a full-of-love operation. I mean, what's it like to be a part of a family business like that? It's amazing, honestly. We treat all of our staff employees like they're cousins, family to us, and they love that. They feel welcome. They enjoy working there because of it. Sure. That's how I was raised, always be treat your people like family. Yeah, Italian hospitality, and that's what you get when you go to the restaurant as well. Let's talk about the business as well, just being in the community. Obviously, it means a lot to the people around, but having all of these different recipes that are family recipes that have been kind of passed down and come from Tuscany, from Florence, from Italy. What does it mean to be around all of this every day, like that heritage side of it? It's honestly, it's amazing because it just reminds you of family. Yeah. I'm very close to my family. I've always been close to family. Yeah. And to share the recipes with our customers means a lot because they get to taste what I had growing up. Oh, that's so awesome. I love that. What's your favorite thing on the menu? My favorite thing on the menu. If it's something we have here or if it's not we have a pizza John John, it's named after me. Oh my gosh, that's adorable and it has prosciutto, arugula, pine nuts, cheese and it's a margarita style. Okay, that's my favorite because I love pizza, who doesn't want pizza but second close is probably the tortelli bolognese. Oh okay, okay and we'll get into that yeah the pizza John John, is that like you had that growing up and you were John John growing up is that where that came from? My dad was like I'm gonna name a pizza after you and he knows I love prosciutto because when growing up he always used to cut prosciutto for me. Oh that's awesome, I love it so I love that, I love that, all right so we've got um some pasta on deck that we're going to make here i know obviously you already have the dough like completed but take me through what it get what what it takes to get to this point where the dough is kind of rolled out and ready to go so we have a blender at the restaurant a mixer and we put semolina flour eggs and then we just mix it up mix it up we let it sit for a bit and then we have a little roller okay roll it out roll it out yeah and then we'll show you how he puts the stuffing in it and that's something that people can really do yes it's fairly simple yeah yeah all right so once you get it to this point it's rolled out it's ready to go um what comes next so we got to make the filling for it the filling is a potato and it's made with potatoes sage okay rosemary tomato paste salt pepper oil all good things all good things he makes it actually all right so then we put it in this little like little piping bag and then uh what do we do from here we just kind of now you just snip it all right and then he'll he's the pro he's the pro i'm not the pro i could talk about the food but you're the narrator so so yeah so we've got that so you make the little uh oh those look so nice yeah he puts a little droplets. Okay, and then this will make you know, I don't know a dozen. I'm trying to do the math in my brain here four six eight and 14 Spread them out a bit, a little water, a little bit of water on it, a little bit of water and that's What does the water kind of do it? So you put the top sheet on and it kind of sticks to it sticks, got it, kind of like an egg wash maybe Yeah, kind of like an egg wash. Got it. Got it. Nice and simple, ingredients very very simple yeah you can make it at home, it'll probably take an hour or so yeah yeah another fun family tradition for people to start making some pasta at home so that you said this is like a potato base but obviously there's like a lot of other fillings that you could make as well, we can but this is typically what we normally go with okay because that's what i grew up on yeah so my dad used to make me nice so then you put that put the sheet on and then he has a little circle cutter Okay. And it kind of shapes it, like keeps the potato in there. Okay. Presses it, kind of presses it down, seals it. Seals it. So this is before you even, you know, make little decorative cuts or anything, right? Yes, yes. This is just to kind of... This is just to... To reinforce it. Reinforce it. Like glue. Nice. Nice. So is this, you can make all different pasta shapes or like kind of ravioli shapes out of this? On Valentine's Day, we do heart-shaped. Oh, that's so fun. I love that. And then we use cheese for that one. okay i believe it's ricotta cheese okay and now he's cutting it with the little thing and do you have different kind of uh i don't even know what you call that we do have different different shapes i forgot the name of it okay but we have some at the restaurant okay oh yeah a different one there so they can make kind of like different wave shapes a little bit is the pasta called something different depending on the shape that you make it like that or is it more what's in the pasta that changes the name so this is basically a ravioli okay but we have different types of so for example like this is bucatini so sure thicker noodle got spaghetti we have penne pasta it's all different ways to make it nice and we have like a pappardelle which is like a pappardelle it's like a thicker fettuccine nice that's really good too all right so we cut it into the little now we recognize this looks like a little piece of ravioli obviously you'd go and kind of like boil it um and is there any kind of secret to boiling it the that that you think is the kind of key to make it taste really good definitely salt your water first yes that's always the key for it i learned that early on and that's that's very key flavor yeah so salt your water boil it wait until it's like bubbling a lot okay and then you dip the tortellis in and then when you kind of see when they're starting to float up okay that's how you you know they're ready to take out the election now yes and then you'd have your sauce whatever you want to have sure put in a pan saute it then you throw the tortelli in it nice flip it around put on a plate nice and that would be like the finished product so yeah so this one actually both of these are featuring that so take me through this this sauce what okay so here this is a sage butter sauce oh that sounds amazing it's basically sage and butter and then actually named he has a oil that we put on that sage okay so we put it on put some pepper fresh sage that's it you guys have i think we have here too you guys's uh extra virgin olive oil that you bring in too and that's from tuscany i believe so do you guys use that kind of like in all your dishes yes that's that's our finishing oil oh nice okay i stay in the kitchen make sure that because it gives it that flavor that you need yeah of course and then this one is like a meat base yes this is the tortelli bolognese okay basically ground beef yeah looks amazing and the little finishing touch finishing touch is a bay leaf and then bay leaf oil salt and pepper and that's an easy way for anyone to elevate just a pasta dish you have at home is just finish it with some of that that's a that's a good tip all right i know we have so many other dishes here as well take me through i guess some of these other ones because these must be kind of your best always right yes yes so this is an apple kind of cake oh it looks so good the ice cream melted a little bit it comes with vanilla ice cream it's really good it's it's moist okay it's not dry nice this is a peach tart oh that looks so beautiful on top yeah and then this is our gluten-free option it is a almond ricotta cake okay and it's very good actually i love a ricotta cake actually really good and then obviously tiramisu it's a classic italian tiramisu gotta Yeah, I have that. And then he's going to show you what a pappardelle looks like. He's going to cut you like a little snippet of it. And you use it all from the same dough base? Yes. Oh, okay. Same dough base. Nice. Except gnocchi, which we're going to eventually put on it. It's a potato. Okay. It's a straight potato with flour. No waste here. I love that. Yeah, no waste. Just make the rest into pappardelle. Awesome. And then let's go into this. Chicken piccata. Chicken piccata. Piccata. Chicken piccata has capers, shallots, lemony garlic. Parsley. And parsley sauce. Delicious. And then it comes with spaghetti cacio e pepe, which is this. And cacio e pepe is a Roman dish. It's cheese and pepper. Yes. Absolutely named it again as well. And then we have these beautiful appetizers over here. I mean, this charcuterie board is like a dream. Yes. That actually sells a lot. I believe it. A lot of people love it. I mean, just the Instagrammable feature of it alone, I feel like I would order that. Yeah. And a lot of people get wine with it because it's the best. Probably pairs very beautifully. Matt, you just gave me a great segue into some of the wines we have here. Obviously, you guys have a lot of Italian wine. I'm sure that's a specialty for you guys as well. Yes, it is. I mean, it's fun because you go to different distributors. You get to taste all the wines, which one tastes good. That sounds like a job I'd be really good at. I don't do it anymore. I have someone that tastes for me because I'm tired of it. Yeah. too much hey if you ever need volunteers i'm happy to help um i'll call you happy to help on that and then we have some i think cocktails here as well these look really nice yes so this is a limoncello spritz we also have a non-alcoholic version of that okay and it's limoncello club soda and prosecco nice and then this is a watermelon uh vodka spritz basically yeah very great for summer in the hot weather and i infuse the vodka actually with watermelon wow that's amazing it's very fresh and tastes great yeah and then of course espresso martini which is actually my favorite a lot of people like it yeah it's a very trendy thing but i'm that's that's my favorite our bartender gets mad that we sell so many which which is the most complicated to make is it the espresso martini because we have to go to the back so yeah make but that's how you actually make an espresso martini a lot people just do the coffee liqueur but actually making the espresso when you go to an italian place you hope they're actually using espresso and then all of our ingredients are fresh like we grow the tomatoes i was gonna ask because these tomatoes look amazing i mean they're just this this uh container is so heavy i picked it up i was like oh my gosh these tomatoes are incredible those are my dad's pride and joy i think they would love it they would be they're beautiful beautiful tomatoes there um okay so yeah so you grow i mean this is the tomatoes that you kind kind of use in a lot of your dishes. Yes. So this is a Caprese salad. It has pesto. It has balsamic glaze. And then we have balsamic pearls, but we don't have any right now. But it's kind of like a cool touch, like a modernized thing. Yeah. The tomatoes. The tomatoes are incredible. I'm sure they taste just as good as they look. They do. Well, thanks for... We got to talk about the bread, too, because I was told that this is special bread, too. Yes, that is very special. Because it's the best bread. That's a good pitch. I like that. It's very good bread. I love bread. I always, you always have to have bread with your pasta. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, you got to get all the stuff at the bottom of the dish. That's what a true Italian would do, right? Exactly. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for bringing all this stuff, for showing us how we can make some pasta at home. Everyone, check out this place when you can, because this stuff looks amazing. We're going to get into it now that we're going to be done with this segment. It looks incredible. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it. We'll be right back on Rise Up Tonight.