At The Table: La Veranda

“Oh, wow,” says the woman at the table next to me, gazing at the fresh fig she has just tasted. “You have got to tell me how you make these,” she says to her waiter. As I listen in on his explanation—the figs are simply halved, stuffed with Gorgonzola cheese, wrapped in pancetta, and grilled—I realize that the sleepy town of Clayton has lucked out.

Who would have thought you’d find an Italian restaurant with knockout food in this old-fashioned, one-street town? The story of La Veranda is served up straight from the American melting pot. Three Lebanese immigrants, brothers Anis and Nicolas Maamari and their partner, Johny Khalilieh, opened the restaurant in May 2002. Anis had fallen in love with Italian cuisine in San Francisco’s North Beach, where he worked at various restaurants while in college. The menu he created, and that his chef, Miguel Guillen, executes, feels as though it arrived directly from Columbus Avenue.

Diners choose from such Italian favorites as fried calamari, beef carpaccio, and melon draped with prosciutto di Parma, as well as crisp pizzas and traditional pasta sauces like carbonara (egg, pancetta, and cheese), arrabbiata (spicy tomato), and vongole (clams). Main courses, including eggplant parmesan, chicken saltimbocca, and veal piccata, are all familiar dishes in the Italian-American restaurant canon.

And like North Beach, La Veranda is steeped in nostalgia. Rumored to be haunted, the Victorian-style building looks more like a house than a business. The weathered wood porch, for which La Veranda is named, makes sitting outside delightful. Inside, a mural of Venice covers a blue-bordered wall, and bottles of Chianti and Barolo line the bar. The mood is informal, and diners of all ages are welcome.

But make no mistake; this is no spaghetti-and-red-sauce throwback. The quality of La Veranda’s food sets it apart. The insalata cesare (Caesar salad) is a rendition of a classic that doesn’t cut corners. Vibrant romaine gets a generous coat of a sharp, cheesy, homemade dressing seasoned subtly with anchovy, and crisp, homemade croutons give the salad body.

Of the pizzas, my husband and I liked the simple, crisp-bottomed margherita best. The dough gets brushed with a thin layer of tomato sauce and is heavily topped with mozzarella cheese; fresh oregano adds a rich, floral element to each bite. Less cheese and more tomato would give this pie more finesse, but there’s no arguing that it is delicious.

And then there’s the gnocchi. You can choose any sauce (marinara, meat, mushroom, pesto, or Alfredo) to blanket their delicate flesh. The meat sauce is made with lean ground beef, tomato, chili, and fennel-seasoned Molinari sausage. A dash of cream turns the sauce pink. When my plate arrives, I take an inventory of each little dumpling, homemade from potato, egg, and flour, as the parmesan cheese begins to melt. I eat all of them, then use my bread to wipe up every drop of sauce.

Although the mushroom sauce served on the chicken breast saltimbocca is not as intoxicating, the dish works well overall. A tender breast of chicken is split open, stuffed with prosciutto and cheese, baked, and served alongside creamy polenta and a standard assortment of carrots and broccoli.
The dessert menu is short and sweet: gelato, tiramisu, chocolate ganache cake, and crème caramel. The chocolate gelato is smooth and chocolaty, and the tiramisu, a homemade layering of brandy-soaked ladyfingers, mascarpone custard, and whipped cream, is heavy on the cream, but it’s fresh and rich.

And there’s something else to like about La Veranda: the staff of good-humored, attentive servers, many of whom are members of the Maamari family. When I ask if they’ve had run-ins with the ghosts that supposedly haunt the place, Anis laughs, saying, “I leave little bits of food for them every night, but they never indulge!”

I’d say they’re missing out.

La Veranda
6201 Center St., Clayton, (925) 524-0011.
Appetizers $2.50-$7.50, entrees $9-$16.75, desserts $4-$5.50.
Lunch Mon.-Fri., dinner nightly, brunch Sunday.