Phantom Gourmet: A Mano In Salem
SALEM - Located on Salem's Pickering Wharf, A Mano is a warm, comfortable spot that has a small, yet festive bar where the locals love to dine and drink; and a more formal dining room perfect for a romantic night out. The menu features a variety of rustic Italian dishes all made "a mano," or "by hand." The man with the hands that make it is Chef-Owner Antonio Bettencourt.
"We try to do everything by hand. The one that's kind of the most obvious is that we make our pasta here by hand. I love to take flour, water and eggs and then turn it from just this pile of stuff into a full meal. It still kinda fascinates me as a cook to see flour become a meal that someone can enjoy."
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Pasta is made fresh daily in all shapes and sizes. There's the Spaghetti All Amatriciana which uses a pasta called 'chitarra,' or 'guitar' in Italian, for its resemblance to guitar strings. Or there's the wide cut tagliatelle which is perfect for holding onto hearty Bolognese.
"The Bolognese is like the absolute classic. It's on a nice flat pasta that you actually feel in your mouth," Antonio described. "The sauce itself is really rich and comforting. We make it with pork, veal and pancetta. There's no beef in there so you don't get that big bold flavor from ground beef. You have the subtlety of pork and veal.
"If it doesn't cook for seven hours, then it's completely wrong. There's no garlic. There's no spice. It's just the flavor of good cooking, seven or eight hours on the stove. It's like heaven."
The pasta dish most near and dear to Antonio's heart and stomach is the Garganelli. Topped with red wine braised duck, dried cherries, kale and pine nuts, this dish is labor intensive, with each individual pasta rolled out one at a time.
"We roll each piece of penne by hand, individually. So I always tell people take a box of pasta, and spill it out onto the counter, and imagine rolling every single piece of penne by hand on a little wooden dowel.
"We roll them on a board that is technically called a gnocchi board, because it has ridges, and a lot of people make gnocchi on it. But we'll roll the garganelli on that so we get some ridges into the garganelli. The point of ridges, whenever you're dealing with pasta, is the thought that the ridges help grab the sauce."
Of course, there are plenty of options to enjoy before your pasta arrives. From crispy pizzas, hand stretched and topped creatively with butternut squash, Brussel sprouts, cranberries and goat cheese; to a trio of grilled ciabatta toast points topped with various spreads; to crispy arancini loaded up with plenty of cheese.
"It just has a ton of parmesan, a ton of cheese in there, that when you bite into it kind of is meltingly cheesy, and gooey, and deep fried," Antonio explained.
You may want to get a few orders of A Mano's meatballs for the table. They're slow cooked, soft and served over a bed of velvety polenta.
"I love polenta," Antonio shared. "That's like the Italian equivalent of mashed potatoes."
Entrees at A Mano are both big and tasty, so be ready to mangia. There's chicken cooked under a brick so the skin stays crispy while the meat remains juicy; and Beef Short Ribs braised for hours so they're ultra-tender.
"We set everybody's place setting with a steak knife. But it's kind of a joke. You're never gonna need it with the short ribs," Antonio said. "Basically one bite and you're in heaven. Served with soft polenta. Everyone's eyes just roll into the back of their head."
The Pork Chop Milanese is a classic, pounded out thin so it covers the plate.
"The Pork Chop Milanese is a pork chop that's pounded out really, really thin. It takes a standard pork chop and makes it to about the size of your head. It's really impressive on the plate. Breaded and pan fried, so it's nice and crispy. Finished with shaved parmesan, fresh lemon and spicy broccoli rabe."
While you can go for traditional Italian desserts like a big piece of Tiramisu, nothing makes customers' eyes light up quite like the Warm Toffee Pudding.
"Basically it's a cake that is served warm, and then with a hot caramel sauce over the top, and then just a simple dollop of whipped cream," Antonio explained. "You take a bite; everything stops. Everyone looks at each other and says, 'Oh my god. What did I just have?'"
With every hand-crafted dish designed to please, you really got to hand it to Antonio, who wouldn't do things any other way.
"It's such an important belief of mine that we cook by hand. You know you love it or you hate it. I absolutely love it. The fact that the restaurant is named A Mano is because cooking to me is so personal. It's so important and it makes me so happy, I couldn't see myself doing anything else."
You can find A Mano at 62 Wharf Street in Salem.
Watch Phantom Gourmet on Saturdays and Sundays at 10:30 and 11 a.m. on myTV38.
