Aventino restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland integrates Jewish traditions into Roman classics
The three steaming Suppli al Telefono that have been set in front of me look like a stack of breaded torpedos. I fork one of them open, and the filling of arborio risotto and mozzarella collapses gently onto the plate. I inspect.
Phew: no sign of chicken livers.
But the risotto in the suppli — the Roman equivalent of the better-known Sicilian arancini, or fried risotto balls — was cooked with a broth that, yes, was made with the livers of chickens. The suppli are richer for the addition, with a deep meaty flavor you don’t expect from a dish that, in others’ hands, are little more than uptown mozzarella sticks.
This is just one example of how the kitchen at Aventino, noted Washington, D.C. chef Mike Friedman’s new restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, subtly incorporates influences from Rome’s Jewish ghetto into his Italian cooking. The ghetto was established in the 1500s and is perhaps the oldest Jewish settlement outside the Middle East. The Jews brought to Italy their own food traditions — presumably including a taste for chicken liver.
But Friedman’s hand is gentle: One pasta dish no longer on the menu used brisket, a Shabbat staple, in its ragu. A meat ragu is a Roman classic, but here it’s touched with a reference to the Jews of Rome.
Here come the Sweetbreads
Then there’s one of the restaurant’s popular appertivi: artichokes, a nod to Mediterranean influences, braised in white wine and topped with a mash-up of salsa verde and Italian mint. Even some of the usually tough outer leaves of the vegetable appear on the plate, but the braise leaves them meltingly tender.
The sweetbreads at Aventino — thymus glands of a cow — are given the cheffy treatment at Aventino. Jews in the Roman ghetto had to make use of everything, including offal. At Aventino, the sweetbreads are light, bright, and crisp, served on a bed of celery root and apple.
The throughline that connects the sweetbreads to the Jewish roots is more direct. Rome’s Jews were not just persecuted but poor, and therefore could not waste anything — including discards of an animal like offal. But in Friedman’s hands the thymus glands are given the high cheffy treatment: brined in buttermilk, breaded, lightly fried, presented on shavings of celery root and apple, and accented with fennel pollen. They’re succulent and bright. If you can ignore the anatomical source of what you’re eating, they’re delicious.
It’s entirely possible to enjoy Aventino as a straight-on Italian restaurant, or, more subtly, a Roman one. The place has been packed since opening, and I’m guessing most people who come aren’t aware of the connection to what was happening on the east bank of the Tiber in the late Middle Ages.
That will not diminish their pleasure. But knowing about it enhanced mine.
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