Il Canale Restaurant Outing

                                                                                                  Jack Zahora

More than 50 veg heads and Il Canale equal amore.

Traditional cuisine from Southern Italy features several courses including antipasto, primo piatto, secondo piatto, contorno, dolce, and caffè.

But the diners are members of a vegetarian cooking group, not on Forbes list of richest men and women in the world. So tonight, the group feasted on several kinds of antipasti, a primo, and dolce.

The servers brought out grilled eggplant, portobello mushrooms, red, yellow and green peppers, sun dried tomatoes, and marinaded artichokes. 

Jack Zahora

Bottles of  the Sangiovese, Toscana (San Polo 'Rubio' 2007) were ordered at one table. While another rowdy group, which at one point broke a wine glass to the screams of opa (wrong country guys), sipped a smoky blend of Montepulciano and Cabernet from Abruzzi (Farnese 'Casale Vecchio' 2007). 

How do you like your pizza? With spinach, bufala di mozzarella Campana, and  cherry tomatoes? Perhaps a Margherita? Or for the vegans in the group, a marinara? 

If pizza wasn't your thing, then maybe you need a bowl of pasta? The manager of Il Canale, Vittorio, called the group late the night before. "I've godda great idea fur a pasda dish you gunna luv," Vittorio said in his heavily accented English that's a mixture of old world Italy and the Miami he's been living in for the past couple of decades. 

The pasta turned out to be a gorgeous cavatelli with basil pesto, cherry tomatoes, Parmesan and a touch of cream. 

Jason McCool

As we munched the night away,  Il Canale's owner, Guiseppe Farruggio, made an appearance and regaled the crowd with the history of classic Italian pizza--200 years in the making.

And as thanks were thrown around the room to all those who made the evening a success, a server yelled out, "don't forget the man of the hour." Executive chef Antonio Biglietto just then appeared at the stairwell. The Pizzaiolo, drenched in sweat from roasting over the helm of a 1,200 degree brick oven, smiled broadly as the DC Vegetarian Cooking Group cheered.

When 10:00 p.m. rolled around, the last few stragglers left the party, a dozen veg heads hopped next door to Paper Moon for a couple drinks at the bar. No Italians here. No authentic menu. The Serbian bartender struggled to answer where the restaurant got its name. 

A couple veg heads rammed shots of vodka and talked about who they were going to bring to Il Canale in the next few weeks.