Title: 2/28/2013
Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Il Pescatore
31 Webster St., Oakland, CA
http://www.ilpescatoreristorante.com/menu.html
Review date: February 2013

Il Pescatore is a long-time Jack London Square tenant. It's the type of predictable Cal-Italian restaurant that used to line Fisherman's Wharf and encircle Washington Square in San Francisco. Carlos came here for lunch thirty years ago and had an awful meal. He has always refused to go back, so I've never had the chance to try it. I convinced him to give them one more chance, as we've tried most of the JLSquare restaurants in the last couple of years (with a couple of newer ones still on our list to try).

Inez was happy to join us, this being the type of restaurant whose food she can identify and likes. Il Pescatore isn't very large, a long narrow rectangle with a fake ship-like décor (all the rage in the early '80's) that focuses on the plate glass windows with a view of the marina. The chairs are comfortable, the tables a little crowded. Service is experienced, efficient and brisk, but didn't impress us, for reasons we'll explain later.

Similar to Kincaid's a few dozen feet away, the serving of sourdough French bread is generous and super-fresh. The butter pats are large and heavily salted. Carlos happily ate three slices by the time his entree arrived. He isn't overly fond of sourdough, but really fresh bread will lure him every time.

There's nothing surprising on a menu from one of these old-style restaurants. The customers come here because they don't like surprises, and so the kitchen and management obliges. Carlos started with the white clam chowder, which was a ringer for canned Snow's Boston clam chowder. Il Pescatore doesn't offer a cup size, so he had an entire bowl. If you like Snow's, you'll like this, although it's as Italian as I am.

I chose the Gamberetti Etrusca starter, a pretentious name for a simple dish. This is a small mound of tiny Bay shrimp, some broken, in a rosemary butter sauce, mixed with crispy breadcrumbs and topped with a bit of shredded Parmesan. Heaped in a scallop shell, it was nicely browned. Nothing remarkable or inspired, but an adequate starter.

The waiter had recited the specials, which were all entrees. I chose one, Inez picked another. She ordered the sole in lemon butter sauce. Il Pescatore uses the old-fashioned egg batter on a fish filet of modest size. She ate everything on her plate and said she enjoyed it.

Carlos decided on the calamari steak, to compare it with the superb versions we've gotten from Zatis and The Fat Lady. Like the sole, it came in an egg batter. Carlos was fine with this, but I was glad I hadn't ordered either dish. I dislike this kind of batter, which to me combines the worst hybrid of of overfried eggs and greasy pancake. The calamari steak wasn't very large, but was one of the most tender we've encountered.

All three entrees came with the same two sides. The starch was a small amount of penne in a plain tomato sauce. The vegetable was sautéed Swiss chard with garlic – a lot of garlic! I loved the chard but didn't think much of the pasta. Carlos and Inez loved both. Carlos especially mourns the loss of the old-style Italian restaurants where pasta was a free first course, and is always pleased when we go to a place where the kitchen uses pasta as the side starch. 

My entree was the veal porterhouse in rosemary lemon sauce, supposedly a house specialty. As always, I ordered it medium-rare. What I received was one of the worst-trimmed cuts ever, with the big fatty tail left on. The chop was a lopsided, uneven cut that was impossible to cook as ordered. The thin outer end was well-done, while the much thicker tail and close-to-the-bone meat were dead rare, barely past the raw purple stage. Only the middle of the chop came out as ordered.

If, as the waiter claimed, they cut the chops in the kitchen, then somebody needs immediate remedial tutoring in How To Break A Rack. This chop had no business being served to anyone except the family dog, especially for $36.

Oddly, the sauce was perfect. The rosemary on the shrimp starter had been a bit aggressive, but the veal sauce showed restraint and balance with that pungent herb. So much so, I could wish that several loudly celebrated local chefs be forced to understudy with Il Pescatore's saucier for a few weeks. 

And about that service issue: I thought about sending the chop back, but finding that the thin edge was already well-done and the small middle portion was lightly pink, I decided to keep the plate. I figured that sending it back would merely render the edge and middle overdone, so it was better for the meat to be underdone instead of overcooked.

The waitstaff at Il Pescatore all appear to be long-term employees, gray-haired and efficient although somewhat perfunctory. I was about one-third of the way through the chop when the waiter came by to ask if everything was satisfactory. I mentioned that the cut was so uneven, the thicker parts were very rare, instead of medium-rare. He offered to take it away, but I shook my head and said, "No, it's all right."

I wasn't looking at him, since at the moment I was wrestling with my chop using a dull steak knife. But the waiter's tone of voice was noticeably awkward as he hesitated and replied, "Well...but it should be more than 'all right'...."

My husband said that he had never seen an experienced waiter look so flummoxed.  "He was standing there with his mouth open," Carlos told me afterwards, which didn't impress him. As I've often said, Carlos can be even more critical of poor service than I am, having worked as a waiter while going through the hotel and restaurant management program at SF City College. 

Inez had difficulty comprehending the dessert menu, so we had to help her. Il Pescatore offers both crème brulee and caramel custard, which is unusual as most restaurants offer one or the other, but not both. We ordered a caramel custard for her, since she doesn't like the sugar crust on a crème brulee. Carlos and I shared the housemade tiramisu.

The custard was a small size, good for Inez's flagging appetite as she ages. The liquid caramel sauce looked sloppy, with the edges of the plate not cleaned off and a large flat disk of overcooked caramel which had turned into toffee, clumped on one side.

The tiramisu was all whipped cream without any mascarpone within hailing distance. A whisper of Frangelico was added to the weak coffee syrup along with too much chocolate, making this another decent mocha cake but not much of a tiramisu. Surprisingly, Carlos got a good cappuccino, and I enjoyed an equally good decaf espresso. 

Nowadays there's choices here at the water's edge of JLSquare, whereas before there weren't. So if you're an old-school traditionalist who shuns the word 'foodie' and has no interest in debating the merits of a Neapolitan pizza crust versus a New York style crust, there is a range of mediocrities: Kincaid, Scott's, and Il Pescatore. Of the three old-style restaurants, only Scott's, which we visited on December 2011 for dinner and February 2012 for lunch, is worth a return visit in our eyes – and only for a couple of menu items. 

However, if you can count at least two dozen friends and family members who are just as passionate about food as you are, able to discuss not just locavore eating but hyperlocavorism, then there's the more interesting JLSq choices of Bocanova, Haven, Forge and Lungomare. And that's without counting over half a dozen other restaurants less than two blocks from the waterfront.

Il Pescatore is charging its customers a lot of money to eat ordinary, unimaginative food, while they look out at the boring vista of a dozen boats tied up in front of Kincaid's restaurant out on the next pier. You can't even see the estuary, the way you can from Kincaid, Scott's, and Lungomare (formerly Miss Pearl's Jam House).  

All the food at Il Pescatore is carefully middle-of-the-road, modestly portioned, with prices higher than they should be. There's a total absence of creativity, vision or imagination. This wouldn't matter if the quality was high and the execution careful – and yes, I'm thinking once again of Vetro, the sublime Italian-American restaurant we went to in Howard Beach, NY. These dishes are the 'old standards' because when well done, they are satisfying and comforting. Vetro's veal chop was a thing of beauty; properly trimmed, evenly cut, perfectly grilled. The sides were given as much care and attention as the main, not treated as a cafeteria-style afterthought.

But at Il Pescatore, the quality is below average; the execution barely adequate. The food scene in Oakland is now so far beyond this tired old warhorse, it's hard to understand how a place like this manages to hang on. Even at touristy Fisherman's Wharf, this would be a barely average, high-priced Cal-Italian restaurant – and at least in SF you'd get a far more scenic view than half a dozen docked boats. 

We knew this dinner wasn't going to be cheap – nothing around here is except for Hahn's Hibachi, which is one step up from a fast-food ricebowl joint. But this felt inflated beyond expectations. Il Pescatore is as expensive as Meritage @Claremont Hotel/Berkeley, which has much better food, generally better service (not always, but usually), and offers a stunning $75 million panoramic Bay vista from Foster City to Marin with both the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridges (the hotel is for sale and that's about what it would cost to buy the whole kit and caboodle). 

So why does anyone eat here? Your guess is as good as ours. They clearly have regulars who adore them. Some diners were being greeted by name. Several reviews on OpenTable rave about how this is their 'special occasion' restaurant.

We dunno. All we can say is, eating here made us yearn for Oenotri/Napa, whose housemade mozzarella, gnocchi with chanterelles, and amazingly efficient waitstaff are the ultimate rebuke to Il Pescatore's indifferent food and superficial service.

Three people, dinner: two starters, three entrees, two desserts, three beverages, with tip was $180.