Title: March 15, 2014
Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Desco in Oakland, CA – update, dinner
http://descooakland.com/dinner/
Review date: June 2014
(previous reviews appended below)

In March 2014 we ate twice at Desco – one time by ourselves, once with our friends Micheline and Magali. The food was exciting and interesting, and we felt Desco was everything we had hoped Borgo Italia, the previous tenant, would be but wasn't. Desco impressed us much more than Lungomare/Oakland, the first of the "new Italian" restaurants to open in Oakland. There were a few dishes we liked at Lungomare (reviewed June 2014 and February 2013), but there were an equal number of things we didn't, including the dismaying flashes of cost-cutting at what was supposed to be an upscale authentic Italian restaurant, and a front house staff that left us cold, intentionally so.

Since then we have visited Desco's new competitors, Trabocco/Alameda and Centouno/Oakland. They are similar only in being new and more authentic Italian regional, but each has a personality and specialties different than the others.

We have dined twice at Trabocco, Centouno and Lungomare; this is our third dinner at Desco. None are perfect, but all are attractive with some very good dishes. As we continue our round-robin returns, however, some differences and a natural daily variance are starting to show up. 

Lungomare and Trabocco are the upscale pair competing with one another. They are large restaurants with experienced staff. Desco and Centouno are both smaller, more casual and familial in feeling, slightly less expensive. We didn't totally love our first visit at Centouno, but a second visit two weeks ago was much better: we found several dishes that are first-rate and unique to Centouno. 

Desco, on the other hand, gave us two very good dinners. We were shocked when this third visit turned out to be a real loser overall. Desco's staff isn't as well-trained as other places. The hostess is inexperienced, and the waiter is as well. If they didn't have a good number of busboys – two were working on a Monday evening, a rather amazing number when there were only two waiters and the small restaurant was mostly empty – we would have been even less happy with the service than we were with the food.

We started with the baccala, just as we've done each time we've come to Desco. The first time the creamy dip was lovely, with rich salt cod flavor. The second time it was milder, but still good. But this time, we'll just have to assume that it was in fact salt cod. We certainly couldn't tell from the taste of it. It could have been extruded white fish paste, for all the (non)flavor it had. It was stunningly bland, and the one thing dried salt cod never is or should be, is tasteless. It still had some chewiness to it to attest this really was a dried fish of some sort, but otherwise it could have been an unbreaded Gorton's fish stick for all its neutral taste.

We were so disappointed, we had a hard time finishing it. I pushed it over to Carlos, and he pushed it back to me! The vaunted "Sardinian crackerbread" tasted and looked like nothing more than overbaked, too thick crackerbread with an unpleasant burnt flavor.

We called the waiter over and spoke to him of our disappointment with this baccala. He confessed to not having tried it himself since March. We told him in March it was excellent, but it has been getting milder every time we've returned, and this time it has gone too far into flavorless territory.

Out came our second courses, oxtail ravioloni for me, seafood risotto for Carlos. The oxtail ravioloni would have been lovely if they'd only been cooked long enough for the dough to actually soften up, instead of the edges remaining hard enough to taste raw and almost crunchy. The sunchoke purée and drizzle of olive oil, with fine shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano, were delightful; they just deserved to accompany something better executed. 

Carlos got the only winner of the evening, the seafood risotto. I reminded him to ask for the risotto to be cooked a little longer, and the kitchen did a great job. There was so much baby squid, clams and mussels, it was actually hard to find the rice. The clams and mussels gave off their wonderful tasty juices, and the Carnaroli rice sucked up that great ocean flavor. The seafood gave enough salt so nothing else was needed, save for a splash of red wine. 

We both wanted to order the salmoncino, the cutthroat trout that so resembles salmon. Unfortunately, the waiter misunderstood and ordered only one plate for us to share, instead of the one apiece we wanted. But this turned out to be serendipity, because the plate of fish we got was so awful, we each took one bite and then...yes, called the waiter over again.

There were two pieces of salmoncino, one thick and one thin. Both were overcooked, the thin one so much so a fork could pick the whole piece up and wave it around without the fish breaking apart. Worse, it wasn't fresh. The fish smelled of ammonia as soon as they put the plate down on the table, and one bite confirmed it. This fish had no business being accepted by a restaurant, let alone be sold to diners.

The sautéed yellow and green zucchini dice were excellent, but we returned the plate. Fortunately the risotto was so filling, Carlos had shared the last third with me, so we weren't that hungry. The waiter apologized, but we told him to just bring us the check.

When the bill was brought to us, the salmoncino was still charged on it. Carlos and I exchanged a look, then for the third time summoned the waiter over! We told him we wanted the salmoncino taken off the bill, and he went to talk to the manager, who also acts as the bartender.

She came over to talk to us. She offered to take both the baccala and salmoncino off the bill, but we told her our complaint about the baccala was one of style, not substance. We had eaten it, so we insisted upon paying for it. The offer of removing the salmoncino was accepted, and she apologized profusely.

We have gotten Joseph as our server two of the three times we've been to Desco, and weren't terribly pleased with either time. His coverage of tables is erratic and sloppy, although he tries hard to please. But Carlos said flat-out, "This guy doesn't know what he's doing," and unfortunately, I have to agree. He's a nice person, but he's more a liability than an asset to a good restaurant. He isn't being trained, and he lacks an aptitude for consistent service.

We're hoping this is a one-off downer and our next time at Desco will be better. But as of now, Desco just fell a nose behind Centouno. As we've said in the other reviews, competition is fierce with these four new restaurants fighting it out in a geographically tight area. Popular as Italian cuisine is, I can't believe all four are going to be able to survive in the fight for the customers' wallets. 

Desco needs to tighten up its front and back staff to stay in the game if it wants to still be here ten years from now. You can't make it on good food once in a while; it needs to be executed consistently (Oliveto, are you listening? Probably not...).

Two people, dinner: one starter, two secondi (one entrée was comped, no beverages), with tip was $59.

Desco in Oakland, CA – update, dinner
Review date: March 2014
(previous reviews appended below)

"Hmmm," you're thinking. "Didn't she just send out a review on this restaurant? Is this a mistake?"

Yes, our first visit to Desco, with our friends Magali and Micheline, was on a Saturday. And no, it's not a mistake; we came back for dinner by ourselves the Tuesday after.

As our friends know, our habit before going on one of our trips is to clear out the refrigerator and then dine out for a couple of days before taking off. We're leaving Thursday for a very quick two-day trip to Sonoma, so I gave Carlos the usual think-about-this question: "Where do you want to eat dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday?"

Nineteen times out of twenty when I ask, he sighs and says, "I don't know, I'll have to think about it."

This must have been that twentieth question. He immediately responded, "Desco one night, and curry the other night!"

Well, that settled that fast enough. So off we went to Desco again. 

You can reserve at Desco through their website, which uses CityEats. More and more the smaller/suburban restaurants are dropping OpenTable as too expensive. CityEats is one of the better alternatives, with almost instantaneous email confirmation of your reservation request. 

Being a Tuesday, it was even emptier than on a Saturday. However, Desco appeared to be drawing a modest crowd of Happy Hour fans, which in our eyes is a good thing. Our high opinion of Desco after our Saturday dinner, went up even higher after our second meal. We'd like to see Desco become the success they deserve to be.

Carlos' eagerness to return was centered on the risotto: carnoli rice, with sangiovese braised oxtail “Piemontese”. But first he started with the baccala again. This is the milk braised salt cod, topped with bread crumbs and baked in wood burning oven. It comes with crackerbread, but Carlos asked for bread instead. 

This time it was much milder than Saturday's version, meaning it was exceptionally well-rinsed and soaked. Carlos actually prefers it saltier, but it was still very good. It's mind-blowing that we can now get excellent baccala (bacalhao in Portuguese) at two restaurants near us in Oakland – Cãna (Cuban) and Desco – after so many years of having to drive elsewhere to find those rare places which offered it.

I started with the roasted veal & root vegetables raviolotti with jus. This was a bit more substantial in size than the excellent casonsei (pork & amaretto crumbs ravioli, brown butter & guanciale) I had on our first visit. The veal raviolotti are small folded rectangular dumplings. The different shapes of the ravioli are charming, but what really matters is the filling. And at Desco, each of the three fillings is superb. I loved the previous meal's Casonsei, and Magali's pumpkin ravioli. The pumpkin filling is super smooth and intensely flavored. The pork filling is very firm in texture, almost bouncy, with a salty pork taste that goes well with the dough. 

But the veal is even better, highlighted by a true veal demi-glace with a touch of cream, that absolutely rocks your world. The veal and chopped vegetable filling is right in-between its cousins: not so firm as the pork, with more texture than the pumpkin. 

That amazing au jus is so luscious, we had to divide up the bread and mop up every drop of sauce. If you order this, make sure to ask for bread with it! This sauce is far too good to waste. These days you could visit a hundred mid-priced restaurants and never find a hint of an actual veal demi-glace in the kitchen. This dish displays it in all its glory; I only wonder if enough of Desco's diners truly appreciate its rarity and savoriness.

For my entrée I picked the pork Ossobucco, in a tomato sauce with polenta. This is plain polenta, not the Fontina-enhanced side dish polenta. In comparison with Carlos' risotto with oxtail, the Ossobucco came off a poor second. My pork was by far the larger dish, easily double the size of the oxtail risotto (it's an entrée, whereas the risotto is lumped with the pastas as a secondi).. Unfortunately, it was less than half as good. 

The incessant demand for ultra-lean meat has created not only hormone-drugged hogs and cattle, but also makes it almost impossible to do a decent long-cooked braise. The meat simply dries out even as it becomes tender, which is what happened to this poor little pork shank. The sauce seemed a splashed-on afterthought, with no flavor of pork in it. It was a barely reduced canned San Marco tomato sauce that tasted as though nothing had been added – no salt, no pepper, no basil or onion or garlic or wine or....anything, so far as we could tell. Plopped on top of an unsalted loose polenta, the dish was too bland, with no umami flavor at all. All it needed was a dusting of grated Gran Padano, but nothing was offered. There's no salt or pepper shakers on the table; you'd have to ask one of the waitstaff to bring it from the kitchen.

But the depth of flavor that was missing in the Ossobucco was wonderfully evident in the risotto. The Carnaroli rice was superb, cooked to a perfect true al dente (not the half-raw crunch that so many California chefs think it is), with the rich creaminess that a great risotto has. It's infinitely preferable to the more common Arborio, although proportionately more expensive. The oxtail gravy was fabulous, full of wine flavor – everything one wants stewed oxtails to taste like. 

This wasn't a large serving; in fact it wasn't much bigger than my raviolotti, having only one small oxtail. Nonetheless, Carlos loved it, saying it was one of the best tasting dishes he's ever encountered in a restaurant. 

As the risotto was a modest plate, he called the waitress over afterwards to order the spaghetti Carbonara. This is very much a classic Carbonara, more about great cheese and guanciale than creamy egg sauce. It wasn't his favorite version, but he judged it very good and liked the portion size, which is intended for multi-course dining.

He finished with a cappuccino, which was well-done and is one of our favorite ways to cap off a meal. The coffee is an Italian brand, and the regular is better than the decaf.

We agreed Desco may well have spoiled us for any other Italian restaurant in the East Bay. Carlos gave it the ultimate compliment – he said it's the only Italian restaurant he could see himself eating at every day, and never getting tired of their food. 

We didn't see the Happy Hour menu until we were paying the bill. There was a copy of it inside the wallet, so we looked it over. Although a third of the items were from the menu, the other two-thirds were unique to the HH menu and quite interesting, such as:
•	Alici Marinate: marinated white fresh anchovies on crostini
•	Farinata e Speck: Chickpea farinata (chickpea flour crepe), speck salumi and arugula
•	Polenta e Gorgonzola
•	Marinated mixed olives with house chips

Next time we come for dinner, we'll ask to see the Happy Hour menu as well. 

Perhaps someday Desco will have the courage to broaden its menu to include the offal we love. But in the meantime, we'll appreciate the opportunity to enjoy Italian cooking of a quality and conception that's far beyond anything else for twenty-five miles around, while being less than a quarter-hour from our home. We consider Desco a bargain, and one of the very rare times we can honestly say you're better off eating in Oakland than in Berkeley.

A lovely dining room, decent (not great) service, excellent food, great value for the price. What's not to like? We repeat what we said on our initial review: If you only go to one new restaurant in 2014, make it Desco. They deserve your support.

Two people, dinner: one starter, two pastas, one risotto, one entrée, two beverages, with tip was $106.

Desco
449 Eighth St., Oakland, CA
http://descooakland.com/dinner/ (also open for lunch)
Review date: March 2014

As Oakland's gentrification began to take a stronger hold in the Jack London Square area after 2004, the natural spillover finally began to impact the long-depressed Old Oakland area around Ratto's and The Swan Market. Good restaurants began to open up, such as Levende East and "B".

Neither of those two lasted more than a few years. Levende was done in by the Great Recession by 2011. "B" stuck it out a while longer before finally shuttering its doors, too. But where one restaurant goes, others will follow. "B" had done a lovely job remodeling their space, and it was quickly taken up by Paul Ferrari and his partners for an ambitious 'authentic Italian trattoria' named Borgo Italia that opened May 2012. 

Paul Ferrari is best known as the grandson of the founder of the A. G. Ferrari delicatessens in the Bay Area. The Ferrari delis were purchased in 2011 by Renwood Opportunities Fund after running into financial problems.

Authentic Borgo might have been, but when Carlos, my MIL Inez, and I tried it in October 2012 we found it hard to love. The quality was high, but the cooking was austere and frankly on the skimpy side. We did fall in love with their marvelous Italian pastries. We're suckers for whipped cream desserts, which are sadly hard to find in Oakland for take-out. Borgo's bigne and ciambelle were, in a word, divine. We dropped in several times just to buy dessert and bring a box home. 

Sadly, Borgo never seemed well thought-out as a business plan. The talented pastry chef quickly ran into visa problems and had to return to Italy. Some people liked the food but many weren't any more in love with it than we were. Within months of Borgo's opening, Ferrari disassociated himself from the restaurant, citing health problems, and Borgo shuttered its doors less than a year after opening.

The neighborhood itself continued to boom. District Wine Bar went into the old Levende East space and is doing well. Miss Ollie's Jamaican opened to great fanfare. Rosamunde's Sausage appealed to the bargain hunters. Such a handsome space as the "B"/Borgo location wouldn't stay empty forever, and within weeks was quickly leased by Donato Scotti, owner of the well-regarded Donato Enoteca restaurant in Redwood City.

Desco opened August 2013 but doesn't seem to have really caught on yet. We met our friends Micheline and Magali there on a Saturday night. I was surprised to see at least a third of the tables remained empty. This is a real shame. Based on this initial dinner, Desco beats Borgo and "B" hands-down, even though it doesn't offer those luscious ciambelle we're now hooked on (we have to drive to Napa to get them from Ca'Momi @Oxbow Market these days). 

To begin with, Desco's menu is twice the length of Borgo's. That's still not very long, as Borgo's was minimal at best. But it offers a wider variety of dishes than its predecessor, so Carlos and I chose to order a large number of starters and sides, but skip the entrées completely.

Micheline and Magali shared the beet salad (which I also ordered). Micheline ordered the Salmoncino entrée: red-meat trout, pan-fried with white wine, EVOO and cherry tomatoes. Although not listed on the menu, it comes with a side of roasted quartered fingerling potatoes. This was a modest filet, nicely cooked and absolutely delicious. We're also inclined to give Desco an extra point for not offering the vastly overused branzino, but we will admit to being biased in this regard.

Magali chose the pumpkin and ricotta stuffed ravioli, served with a light butter and sage sauce. We had sampled a similar dish when our friends Shirley and Bob ordered it at Perbacco/SF in November 2013. Desco's version was equally good. The ravioli here weren't quite as well-filled, but the intensity of flavor was impressive.

Carlos asked the waitress about the risotto but couldn't get a definitive answer from her, so he decided not to order it. She did ask how we wanted the course progression, as we also ordered a salad and two starch sides instead of entrées. She sort of listened, although a request later for an additional dish (of which more, below) made it all a little awkward.

Carlos and I started by sharing four of the starters:
•	Piatto Della Casa: smoked duck, roasted porchetta & rabbit terrine 
•	Polipetti: crispy baby octopus & wild arugula 
•	Baccala: milk braised salt cod baked in wood burning oven 
•	Monterey Bay baby Calamari: grilled with cannellini beans salad 

The Piatto is excellent, and is better than the usual offered at most Italian places, including Ca'Momi and Oenotri. It strides that fine line between "enough" but "not too much", and if you wanted to just have charcuterie and the separate cheese plate you'd probably be more than satisfied. We didn't try the cheese plate, but the servings at Desco are more generous than Borgo's were; they seem similar to Ca'Momi/Napa and Lungomare/Oakland.

The duck breast was tender and tasty. The sliced porchetta was paper-thin; this was the only item we got that was a little on the scant side. The rabbit terrine was actually a roulade, sliced 1/2" thick and lightly drizzled with balsamic. There was a small heap of undressed arugula and endive, and a ramekin of very fruity mustard, housemade.

The Polipetti didn't have much octopus, but they were true babies, floured and quickly deep-fried. Tender and tasty, it was handsomely served with arugula, cherry tomatoes, and a curving bread crisp dyed black with squid ink. This is a fairly lightweight starter compared to the Piatto. At most, two people could share it.

The calamari were just the bodies, no tentacles (darn!) lightly grilled and served in a lettuce cup, over what Carlos felt were too many cannellini beans. He was okay with it, and I thought the calamari was very tasty, but he wouldn't order this again. We are just not fans of the whole seafood and beans concept. It's rarely done well, and this one was unexciting.

The Baccala, dried salt cod, was served coarsely shredded in a spread. Carlos prefers this style to the super-creamy spreads; he likes those salty chunks of slightly chewy fish! It's served with crackerbread, which is good but not quite as addictive as Ca'Momi's was. We'd suggest if you order this starter, be sure to order fresh bread to be brought with it. Bread is given upon request only, and it takes them a few minutes to heat it up. It has a crackly crust and very soft interior, so it was excellent with the Piatto and the Baccala.

Micheline and Magali have broadened their diet to include some chicken and fish. They were long-time vegetarians, but Micheline did try a bit of the baccala, and said she liked it.

Deciding that I needed an extra dish, I called the waitress over and ordered the Casonsei, pork & amaretto crumbs ravioli, brown butter & guanciale (cured pork jowls; richer than pancetta). This came with a stunning rapidity, with no one getting any other dishes. This break in the course progression felt awkward, but fortunately it was only a few minutes before servers came over with the rest of our dishes – our friends' entrées, my beet salad, and Carlos' polenta and fregola dishes.

The ravioli is a small dish, a true secondi.  My ravioli were different than Magali's ravioli shape – hers were the classic half-moons. For my dish, the pasta was folded upwards into a small triangular shape around a rather firm but tasty pork filling. The brown butter was diluted by the water dripping off the ravioli, which was unfortunate, but the diced guanciale was generous and wonderfully crispy. It was a lovely little dish, and would be worth ordering again. 

The menu describes my salad as: Biete: salad of roasted beets, goat cheese and ‘tonda gentile’ roasted hazelnuts. It was a solid portion for one, probably better for two but not the "mile high" heap of greens, as are most of the salads one sees nowadays. I thought it was okay but not the best arugula/beet salad I've had. The arugula was a little too mature and the beets were very mild with little sweetness. I love hazelnuts, but there wasn't enough acid in the dressing – and that's something I don't say very often! But when a bitter green is used, it works best when contrasted either with something fatty or something tangy, neither of which it received here. It was good quality, but next time I'll try one of the other salads.

Carlos has come late to the allure of corn in its various forms, but he has finally succumbed (at last!). He is fond of fresh corn on the cob, but wasn't previously a big fan of cornbread, polenta, and grits. He also loves fregola, or Israeli couscous/pearl couscous as it's sometimes called. So he chose to order two sides instead of an entrée: the Fregola pasta, olive garlic & calabria peppers and the Polenta with Fontina cheese. These come in small oval gratins. 

The fregola was judged okay but unbalanced. We love spicy food, but this tasted like the hot peppers had been added at the last minute. The pasta wasn't evenly spicy – the pearls of fregola which touched a piece of pepper were super spicy, but the fregola that wasn't right next to a pepper, tasted absolutely plain, barely salted and with little garlic flavor. As a side, it was a nice idea but a poor execution. It seemed too spicy to be a good starch for any of the listed entrées that evening.

The polenta was a winner, however. Everybody liked it. The fontina melts well, and being mild but not overly rich it let the good flavor of the high-quality polenta shine through. Carlos loved this and would definitely order it again.

We ordered a couple of desserts to let everyone share. One was the marzipan and almond cake with gelato, and the other was an Italian custard in the traditional small glass Mason jar. The cake was excellent – I love nut flour cakes, which are sadly rare these days. The meringue was a little too sweet, but the gelato was a fine accompaniment.  

The custard was very rich and very delicate. It was topped with a frosted shortbread cookie and a "cigar roll" of swirled dark and white chocolate. But it really didn't need anything at all. It's halfway between a delicate French custard and a Spanish flan, and altogether delectable.

Similar to Borgo, Desco only offers espresso drinks. Carlos had an Americano; I had a double decaf espresso. I didn't care for their decaf blend, however.

Desco was a surprise. We were so disillusioned by the unfulfilled promise of Borgo Italia, and the more traditional offerings of Lungomare, that Desco's generous individualism was a welcome wake-up. If we hadn't eaten at Ca'Momi just last week, we might nominate Desco as the best Italian restaurant we've encountered so far in the SF Bay Area. 

As it is, they don't quite come up to Ca'Momi's level, but they are really close. We are truly fortunate in the Bay Area to have not only several fine American Italian restaurants, but a number of well-executed, interesting Italian Regional restaurants as well. It's a huge change on the food scene, and the speed of it is astounding. 

For such a sophisticated restaurant to open up in Oakland, where parking is still relatively easy and the location is accessible from almost any direction, boggles the mind. Riva Cucina/Berkeley was such a restaurant, but quickly fell a full level when the neighborhood wouldn't support their slightly higher-than-average prices, which were still less than what would be charged in SF. 

This is the first Italian restaurant in Oakland to come close to the Perbacco/Ca'Momi level of cooking. We hope Desco can keep the level of quality high. The execution is terrific and the menu is a great balance of dishes that are familiar and yet not quite as expected. 

But those empty seats worry us. Honest, if you go to just one new restaurant in 2014, make it Desco. These people deserve to be supported. Food like this just doesn't come along every day – and certainly not yet in Oakland!

Four people, dinner: four starters, one salad, two sides, two pastas, one entrée, two desserts, three beverages, with tip was $193. It would have been cheaper if Carlos and I had simply ordered two starters and two entrées, but we wanted to try the widest variety of dishes possible.