“I’m going to be honest with you, even when they let us back inside, we might just stay outside,” said Alfonso Curti, chef and co-owner of Trattoria Uliveto, which recently unveiled its new patio space for outdoor dining.
Following a steady lunch rush, and a successful dinner service the night prior, Curti sounded enthusiastic during an afternoon phone call with the Sun on Feb. 17.
It was Ash Wednesday, which prompted the Italian eatery to promote its various seafood offerings, from linguini crostacei (linguini with mussels, clams, shrimp, and calamari) to zuppa di pesce (seafood broth with mussels, clams, calamari, and the fish of the day). One of Curti’s personal faves on this side of the menu is the sole piccata.
“It might be too early to tell, but things are looking great,” the seasoned chef said in regard to the spacious patio’s positive feedback so far.
While the new outdoor setting comes complete with patio heaters to warm diners during brisk evenings, Curti predicts the patio will attract more patrons with each passing week, as winter comes to an end and spring approaches.
“The weather is only going to get better from here,” Curti said.
Like nearly all restaurateurs, Curti was obliged to embrace new business tactics in order to adapt to the pandemic, starting with the first shutdowns back in March of last year. He can remember that eerie weekend like it was yesterday.
The morning after Trattoria Uliveto’s last regular evening service before to the statewide shelter-in-place order, Curti was brainstorming how to proceed.
“I remember waking up and telling my wife that we had to start making ‘family meals,’” Curti said.
Trattoria Uliveto began offering special family takeout dinners, with each package including bread, salad, and different options for the main dish, including chicken parmigiana, lasagna, penne bolognese, rigatoni with meatballs, and more. The restaurant continues to offer its family meals, designed to feed a family of four, usually on a daily basis for $45 (early pre-orders are required with occasional exceptions).
During December of last year, Trattoria Uliveto collaborated with Pacific Christian School in Santa Maria on a family meal fundraiser. Curti jumped at the chance to help raise funds for the school after he was approached by a friend with children enrolled at Pacific Chrisitan. On Dec. 16, a large tent inhabited the school’s parking lot for the fundraiser’s pickup day. Inside the tent were several tables, all lined with row after row of takeout family dinners.
“It’s a win-win concept—we win and the school wins,” said Curti, who continued the dinner fundraiser trend the following month to benefit another local school.
At the end of January, Trattoria Uliveto hosted a family meal pickup night to benefit St. Louis De Montfort School in Santa Maria. For each customer who mentioned the school throughout the evening, 15 percent of their total cost was donated. The event raised about $7,000 in sales, said Curti, who hopes to benefit more schools and other organizations with future fundraiser events.
While the takeout family meal option has been a constant for Trattoria Uliveto since it was first introduced in March, its onsite dining has fluctuated throughout the course of the COVID-19 crisis, depending on what the current local and state mandates allowed.
For Curti, one silver lining to come out of the past several months is the increased amount of restaurants striving to make their establishments compatible with outdoor dining, especially locally and in areas you wouldn’t expect to find such options.
“It took a pandemic for Santa Maria to discover outdoor dining,” said Curti, who co-founded Trattoria Uliveto in 2008 with fellow restaurateur Jim Spallino.
Curti’s culinary career began when he was a teenager while working at his family’s bakery, according to Trattoria Uliveto’s website. A native of Calabria, a region in southern Italy, Curti moved to the U.S. in the 1990s, and brought a plethora of his family’s unique Italian recipes with him.
Spallino, a longtime Central Coast resident and business owner, first met Curti while he was working as the executive chef of Grappolo in the Santa Ynez Valley, a restaurant Spallino often frequented. After meeting, Spallino and Curti soon sought to collaborate on an eatery of their own, one that would transport guests to a traditional trattoria in the heart of Italy, through both its cuisine and inviting atmosphere.
More than a decade later, Trattoria Uliveto is widely known as one of Old Town Orcutt’s most popular restaurants, earning several accolades throughout the years. Last year, the restaurant scored both Best Orcutt Restaurant and Best Italian Food in the Sun’s Best of Northern Santa Barbara County Readers’ Poll.
“Overall, I’m a pretty positive person,” said Curti, looking back on the past several months and realizing it’s been nearly an entire year since the first pandemic-induced shutdown.
Curti said he feels grateful for the community’s support toward Trattoria Uliveto, especially during this surreal time period. He also feels for businesses and individuals that have had to face severely worse complications than his own.
“Everyone likes to say, ‘We’re all in this together,’ but really everyone is in their own situation—some people have it worse than others,” Curti said. “Everyone has their own challenges to overcome.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood is Garfield when it comes to lasagna. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 4, 2021.