It’s almost time to cheer on our country’s team in the Winter Olympics. This February, countries will compete in Milan, Italy, a global capital for fashion, design and food. If you’ve been to Italy, you know just how good the pizza and pasta are, but they wouldn’t be the same without fresh, aromatic and slightly tangy marinara sauce.
On paper, marinara is perhaps one of the simplest sauces to make, but its complexity lies in restraint, technique and ingredients. We asked four local chefs what makes their marinara sauce top-tier, for a little friendly competition as we gear up for the Olympics.
Son of a Peach’s Chef Bart Nadherny
The farm-to-table sauce
Neighborhood pizzeria Son of a Peach prides itself on its pure and rustic tomato sauce. Made with Stanislaus canned tomatoes — an Italian family company based in California — these tomatoes are packaged within four to six hours of being picked, making them peak-season and vibrant in colour and flavour. Chef Bart adds fresh basil and garlic, a sprinkle of chili flakes and a bit of extra-virgin olive oil before the sauce cooks on top of their pizza dough. A taste of Son of a Peach’s tomato sauce and you’re transported to a sunny farm where tomato vines thrive and produce fresh, floral fruit.
2049 Pine Street #62, Burlington
heypeachy.com
Di Mario’s Trattoria’s Culinary Director Claudio Aprile
The perfectly timed sauce
For Claudio Aprile, making marinara sauce is a meticulous dance. The key is knowing the exact moment to add finely-diced onion to olive oil and knowing how long to keep crushed garlic in the mix before removing it, to impart flavour without overpowering the palate. It’s not about showing off technique or trying to outdo yourself.
The best tomato sauce is minimalist. At Di Mario’s, San Marzano tomatoes are the main act in the sauce, which is the backbone of the menu, used for their veal parmesan and a variety of pastas. Claudio credits Chef Gianpiero Todina for his simplistic — but oh so intelligent — approach to Italian cooking.
1455 Lakeshore Road, Burlington
dimarios.co
Sotto Sotto’s Chef Nabeel Sadaq
The labour of love sauce
Chef Nabeel at upscale Italian restaurant Sotto Sotto boils and peels roma tomatoes to make their well-loved marinara sauce. Once soft, the tomatoes are blended and cooked down with shallot, green onion, garlic, salt and pepper for at least half an hour — but the longer, the better. The result is a balanced bite that is sour (in a good way), punchy and silky-smooth. It’s so good that customers frequently walk to the kitchen to compliment the staff. Chef Nabeel recently had a customer tell him it was the “best tomato sauce” she had ever tasted. Sotto Sotto’s marinara pizza is a refined dish that pairs the sauce with just anchovies and parsley.
139 Trafalgar Road, Oakville
sottosotto.ca/oakville/
Michelle’s Duelling Grandmas
My late grandmother, Grace Morra, made a killer sauce by browning tomato paste, deglazing it with water, and adding canned plum tomatoes, onion, herbs, and a pinch of sugar. It cooked for hours and had a deep red colour and a rich, smoky tang.
Meanwhile, Grace’s mother-in-law (my great-grandmother Lena) made an entirely different sauce using only tomato paste, water, and seasonings. My dad would never have dared tell his mother that sometimes, for a change, he secretly loved his Grandma Lena’s sauce. Sacrilege!
Verace’s Chef Tomo Kovacek
The authentic sauce
Why change a good thing? At Verace, Chef Tomo swears he’ll never switch up his marinara sauce. His authentic approach to Italian cuisine has earned the restaurant VPN (Verace Pizza Napoletana) status, an Italian designation that strictly manages artisanal pizza making. Chef Tomo uses high-quality Italian olive oil and cooks San Marzano tomatoes with basil and garlic before finishing the sauce with parsley and seasonings. He graduated from culinary school in former Yugoslavia near Italy and has long been passionate about Italian cuisine. This passion is evident in his marinara sauce, whether it’s used for Verace’s bolognese, gnocchi or as a dipping sauce for calamari.
312 Lakeshore Road East Unit 3-5, Oakville
veracepizza.ca
by Lauren Medeiros
