Sonoma County restaurants treat servers with a family meal

Sonoma County has its share of talented sous chefs and line cooks, but the only meals that allow them to really make their mark are ones that the public doesn’t get to taste.

The family meal - a rustic repast prepared for the staff, who break bread together before or after the peak hours of service - is a venerable restaurant tradition. During the past week, many of the restaurants who serve their staff family meal have been feeding others in the community as well, bringing comfort food like mac ’n’ cheese and biscuits ‘n’ gravy to shelters from Petaluma to Healdsburg while serving free meals to evacuees who come to their restaurants.

After all, food is the most tangible way to show others that you care, and during difficult times, simple meals of roast chicken and potatoes, pasta and salad can recharge the soul along with the body.

Many of the local chefs who feed their staff on a regular basis were themselves trained in restaurants where the communal staff meal helped create camaraderie and provided a brief respite from the high-stress demands of the job.

“In the kitchens that I was brought up in, you always sat down before service for a quiet time,” said Mark Stark, who oversees two family meals a day at his five restaurants in Santa Rosa and Healdsburg (Willi’s Wine Bar was burned to the ground in the fire.) “You’d sit down with the front and the back of the house, 15 minutes before the chaos ... It’s the huddle before the game starts.”

Family meal fare tends to be rustic and comforting, and often has an ethnic accent, depending on the culture and cooking experience of the person who is preparing it.

“We have some of the best Mexican food for family meal,” Stark said. “At the Steakhouse ... the staff does a lot of different enchiladas with really good sauces. Sometimes they make the sauce at home and bring it in. They are really proud of it.”

The family meal tends to be homey, but that doesn’t mean it’s not delicious, as witnessed by several cookbooks inspired by the tradition, from “Off the Menu” (2011) by Marissa Guggiana to “Come In, We’re Closed,” (2012) by Christine Carroll and Jody Eddy.

In an industry where salaries are relatively low and perks few, the family meal can help boost morale while providing workers with protein, vegetables and maybe even a sweet something before or after their shifts.

It’s very much like the way most families cook at home, created from one-part inspiration, one-part leftovers, and one-part love. Think frittatas and salami sandwiches, pizza and tacos.

“Restaurants operate on such razor-thin margins in general, that it’s one of the perks we can give,” said Josh Silvers, chef/owner of Jackson’s Bar and Wood Oven in Santa Rosa. “Food is love, and you should show people that you love them.”

Chef/owner Dino Bugica of Diavola in Geyserville said at his restaurant, family meal is a casual affair that doesn’t require much planning.

“It all depends on who’s cooking,” he said. “Sometimes the pizza guy does it, and it’s pizza night, and we always do a salad of some sort. For lunch today, the guys made chilaquiles.”

If Bugica is butchering a fresh batch of fish, he will make a favorite dish from his cooking days in Hawaii - a Filipino soup known as sabao, which is traditionally made with fish heads but can also be made with fillets.

“In Hawaii, all the dishwashers would go get the rice,” he said. “Then they used all the leftover stuff, ginger, tomato and fish sauce. Watercress is really good and spinach or bok choy. You put the soup right over the top of the rice.”

At Bistro 29, chef/owner Brian Anderson allows his servers to order something off the menu before lunch, then at the end of the evening, the night shift sits down together to a nice meal with a glass of wine or a beer.

“My sous chef makes it, and on the weekend, it’s usually stuff left over from the prix fixe menus on Tuesday through Thursday,” he said. “We dig around for a protein, then decide from there.”

On a recent night, Anderson had just butchered whole chickens, so his sous chef made some roasted chicken thighs and saffron risotto cakes from leftover risotto, served with a salad.

Anderson will often make a Tortilla Espagnol with potatoes or do a quick, one-hour coq au vin and serve it up with potato puree - made with lots of butter and cream - and a salad.

“Our staff appreciates it,” he said. “They get to eat something, have a glass of wine and relax.”

It’s usually the junior cook’s responsibility to make family meal, and that’s often how a young cook starts climbing the ladder.

“At the City Hotel (in Columbia), we would have family meal together,” Silvers said. “And if it wasn’t good, they would tell you.”

Because they don’t have any menus to follow, Stark said that the tradition also allows each cook to express their own creativity.

“They are all replicating what I put on the menu for service,” he said. “But at family meal, you get to see their personality.”

The following recipe is from Brian Anderson of Bistro 29 in Santa Rosa. He suggests serving it with a potato puree and a salad.

Bistro 29’s Quick ?Coq Qu Vin

Serves 6

6 whole chicken legs

- Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, diced

6 cloves garlic, diced

3 ounces bacon, cut into lardons

3 sprigs thyme

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon tomato paste

½ bottle red wine

2 cups chicken stock

1 tablespoon beurre manié (half flour, half butter, blended together)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat a pan to medium-high and add 1 tablespoon olive oil. Salt and pepper the chicken legs and put them in the pan to sear them on both sides. Remove the legs from the pan and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and sauté the onions, garlic, bacon, thyme and bay leaf until onion is translucent.

Add the tomato paste and the red wine and chicken stock.

Put the chicken in a roasting pan and spread the sauce over the chicken. Put it in a 350 degree oven for 1 to 1½ hours. Pull it out and add the beurre manié to thicken the sauce, stirring well. Let it sit for 15 minutes.

The following recipe is from Dino Bugica of Diavola ub Geyserville. Enjoy it poured over a bowl of hot rice. You can substitute any red chile, such as Thai chiles, for the Hawaiian chiles and use Vietnamese fish sauce, preferably Red Boat, in place of the patis.

Diavola’s Family ?Meal Sabao

Serves 4

5 cloves garlic

1- inch chunk of ginger, peeled

1 large onion

4 stalks lemongrass

- Canola oil

- Salt and pepper

3 Hawaiian chile peppers, seeds and top removed, sliced

2 tablespoons patis (Filipino fish sauce)

2 quarts water

1 pound salmon bellies or halibut, cut into 1-inch pieces

½ pound easy-peel shrimp (or 6 ounces dried shrimp)

½ pound Roma tomatoes, cut in half

5 stalks green onion

¼ cup Thai basil

1 bunch cilantro

¼ cup soy sauce

- Lemon juice, optional

Slice the garlic, ginger and onion. Rinse and chop the lemongrass. Sauté the garlic, ginger, onion and lemongrass in canola oil in a large pot until tender, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the chile peppers, patis (fish sauce) and water. Bring to a boil, then add the fish and shrimp.

Add the tomatoes, green onions, basil, cilantro and soy sauce. Set heat to medium and let simmer for 10 minutes. Shrimp is cooked when it turns pink in color. Taste and add additional seasoning as desired, and a good squeeze of lemon juice.

The following recipe is from Jason Denton, chef de cuisine at Jackson’s Bar & Oven in Santa Rosa.

Jackson’s Family ?Meal Frittata

Serves 12

20 eggs

1 cup heavy cream

10 ounces cooked sausage

10 ounces roasted mushrooms

6 ounces roasted red peppers

4 ounces caramelized onions

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

½ cup grated pecorino cheese

2 tablespoons chopped oregano

4 tablespoons butter

- Salt

- Pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk eggs and cream together in a large mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the butter) to the bowl and mix together. In two 10-inch, non-stick, oven-proof sauté pans, melt the butter (1 tablespoon in each).

Evenly distribute the egg mixture between the two pans. Cook in a 350-degree oven for about 20 to 25 minutes or until the middle is fully set. Remove from pan and cut into slices.

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.