Before 2008, North America had a lousy ratio of good to bad pizza. Then the Great Recession brought with it a wave of Neapolitan pizza. Toronto’s Pizzeria Libretto was part of that, eventually growing to a half dozen locations, plus an offshoot trattoria, Enoteca Sociale, focusing on fresh, Roman-style pasta. For the last four years, the kitchen has been run by Kyle Rindinella, whose introduction to Italian cuisine oddly came through McDonald’s. Rindinella’s father had worked for the global foodservice giant since he was 16. He spoke a little Italian and had been with the company so long that, when they were planning the first location in Italy, he was asked to help open it. Rindinella was two when the family moved. And for the next 10 years, they lived just outside Milan, in a neighborhood of expatriates from Canada, the U.S., and Japan. Visiting his father at the office, going for afternoon espresso breaks (the younger Rindinella drinking apricot juice), he developed a deep appreciation for food and Italian culture. Here, Rindinella tells La Cucina Italiana about how Enoteca, with a less obvious transition to takeout than its pizzeria siblings, has adapted over the last year.
What’s been your strategy for the variety of products and services you’ve offered over the last year?
We never went the lasagna route. It doesn’t stay true to our brand. And we wanted to put what we offer true to the restaurant’s Roman theme. We have our Amatriciana as a cook-at-home kit. Plus cacio e pepe, and cavatelli with rapini pesto. We have a gelato program starting. Cocktail kits. And we’ve started selling wholesale to other companies, like Bondi Produce.
Bondi is a restaurant supplier, a wholesaler. What do you sell to them? Are they doing retail now?
Pasta kits as well as our focaccia and sourdough bread. All of these companies we’re working with, I don’t think many of them were offering at-home services before. They all now offer at-home delivery. And they’ve partnered with restaurants, selling meal kits.
And bread?
We’ve always baked our bread in-house. Probably about 100 focaccias a week and 75 sourdoughs. Right now we’re making 175 focaccias and almost 250 sourdoughs a week.
Being the enoteca in a group of pizzerias, how has your relationship with the collection of restaurants shaped your pandemic activities?
It’s allowed us to do a bit of a collaboration. We did a box with Libretto and Enoteca, like for a date night, that included their frozen pizzas as well as some of our antipasti, like mortadella, olives, eggplant caponata, a seven-ounce negroni, and some cannoli for dessert. I’ve learned a lot from what Libretto has done with their commissary and how fast their frozen pizzas have grown. It’s been a great tool for me to reach out and ask questions about wholesale, deliveries, and pricing, aspects of food sales I’m not familiar with.
Under previous chef Kris Schlotzhauer, your kitchen transitioned to a four-day workweek. What is it like now?
We kept that four-day workweek up until the pandemic shutdown. That was important to me and I commend Kris for getting that going. I thought it was a smart move and a good move for the cooks here. It gives new cooks time to think about themselves. With the closure and then reopening, we don’t work as long hours as we used to. So cooks aren’t working four 11-hour days anymore. What I’m proud of now is we have all our cooks back. And we’ve hired a few new cooks. And we’ve been able to give them all the hours they’re looking for. So some of my cooks want five days a week, at eight hours a day. Some just want two or three shifts a week because they’re focusing on their own pop-ups, cooking the food they love, and want to follow their career path with.
Post-vaccine, are you looking to go back to that 4-day model?
For the cooks that want it, yes. There are cooks who want 44 hours over five days. And then there are cooks who like working day shifts, like 6 a.m. to 1 or 3 p.m. But I do like that four-day workweek. I think it’s important to give everyone the time that they want and need. The ones who want to go back to that will get it. We don’t do day rate at all. It’s all by the hour, by the book.
Day rates are exploitative and nobody should be doing them.
No. But it’s still there.
Kyle Rindinella of Toronto's Enoteca Sociale. Credit: Jesse Milns
Is it still common?
I don’t know about common. But I hear people still doing it. Or finding a workaround, like offering a line cook a salary that, when you look at what you’re expecting of them, is just a day rate, packaged differently. At the end of the day, if my employees are happy, it’s going to make for a better work environment. And I think that you can see at taste the difference when a kitchen is in sync, happy, and working together.
What’s something you haven’t been able to offer diners during the pandemic, that you’re eager to cook again?
I know exactly what that answer is. It’s handmade, fresh, stuffed pasta. All of our takeout pasta now, more or less, is extruded or a long noodle. Nothing stuffed. Because they just die in takeout containers. I just can’t wait to put beautiful, fresh, stuffed pasta on a plate and serve it to a guest.
What is it about the physical process that’s so satisfying?
It’s mixing and kneading that dough, feeling it in your hands, through your pasta sheeter. You can feel it getting softer and thinner, more silk-like. Until you have this beautiful, thin sheet of dough on your cutting board that’s see-through. You could read a newspaper through it. Using tools to cut shapes and sizes before putting your filling in. Braising rabbit to put in a stuffed pasta for the spring, to go with fava beans and Pecorino Romano. Taking the pasta into your hands and folding it, for cappellacci or tortellini. Knowing that every piece was made by hand, with love.
Enoteca Sociale photo at top by Rick O’Brien