If you visited Susan and Jason in SF between 1996 and 2010, you definitely had dinner at Antica Trattoria. The small, corner restaurant on their block was practically an extension of their apartment, particularly because Vicki, the hostess, treated them like family, and the chef/owner, Ruggero, was a genius at elevating simple recipes to the sublime.
There were several obligatory dishes to order…the wild boar bolognese, the tagliata steak, the flourless chocolate cake with macerated cherries…but one dish that Susan ordered every single time was this salad. The rest of the table would always scoff, why get salad when there are so many amazing dishes you can’t make at home in minutes. The answer is because it is absurdly delicious, and the perfect accompaniment to an otherwise potentially heavy dinner.
Ruggero later opened a seafood bar up the street called Pesce, which if possible, became even more beloved. There was only one dish from Antica that made it on the menu at Pesce. You guessed it, the arugula-fennel salad.
When Ruggero decided to stop cooking, he closed his fine dining restaurants and opened an upscale pizza chain called delarosa. They offered this salad for years, but after Ruggero died a few years ago, some genius decided to dumb the menu down to boring Caesars and house salads.
This is as close as I can remember it. The original definitely used white balsamic but I have never owned a bottle of it so lemon juice works too. The Parmesan is a star here though, so buy a block of the good stuff and shave it fresh. Use a lot. It is worth it.
Ruggero’s Arugula-Fennel salad
Ingredients
- 1 fennel bulb
- 8 ounces arugula
- 1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, skinned
- Parmigiano Reggiano, shaved in ribbons
Vinaigrette
- 3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar OR lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon honey
Instructions
- Trim the fennel bulb if needed, then submerge in ice water for 5 minutes to make slicing easier.
- If you need to toast the hazelnuts, bake them on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes at 350F.
- Use a mandoline, ideally, or very sharp knife to slice the fennel into thin shavings, ie roughly the same size as the arugula.
- Whisk the dressing ingredients together until emulsified.
- In a large salad bowl, toss the arugula and fennel shavings with a small amount of the dressing. Add a little dressing at a time, you just want a very lightly dressed result.
- Add the toasted hazelnuts, toss, and plate the salad.
- Use a potato peeler to shave wide ribbons of Parmesan on the top. Add a LOT of Parmesan. Trust me.
- In an ideal world, you’d have a handful big, homemade, olive oil soaked croutons to put on top, but it is not essential. Good bread on the side is fine too.