Victor Avila
A Menu with a Beat
Executive Chef Victor Avila, of Spaghettini Italian Grill & Jazz Club in Seal Beach, California, has contributed a perfect and practical dish for any holiday table. Practical because the ingredient list is very simple and takes under an hour to make and bake. Perfect because his Butternut Squash Risotto with Prosciutto wrapped Scallops recipe is really a wonderful warm comfort food disguised as an innocent main course.
The recipe combines the hearty richness of one of the fall season’s most full-flavored hard squashes with the creamy texture of a fine risotto laced with roasted pine nuts. The sea scallops, wrapped in a fine Italian prosciutto, add a counter balance of flavors and a touch of decadence to the dish. Serve as a one-course luncheon or dinner entrée; just add a fireplace and some stormy weather to experience the full warmth of this dish.
Chef Victor has been cooking at Spaghettini for some seventeen years. He started as a teenager and has literally worked his way from dishwasher up through the culinary ranks of the restaurant to executive chef. No doubt this talented chef has a great story to tell, that is if Victor was not such a modest and low-key man. The chef deflected all individual attention for this feature, insisting that he is one part of a larger team of his co-workers and that this article should be about the restaurant and its staff as a unit.
This commitment of the employees to each other and the restaurant takes the relationship between a business and its workforce to a rare level of partnership. That partnership is really the key to the success that Spaghettini has enjoyed for almost twenty years. For Victor, like most of the staff members, Spaghettini has evolved from being just a job into a profession dedicated to excellence under the inventive management of co-owners Cary Hardwick and Laurie Sisneros. To support the restaurant’s seven-day lunch and dinner menus, plus special events, plus the adjoining jazz club, it takes a small army of over one hundred people. Cary and Laurie operate on the premise that their business success really depends on how well coordinated those one hundred people can work together, which has a lot to do with how long they’ve worked together. Therefore, their approach to management focuses almost entirely on maintaining a stable, long-term workforce. This includes a range of job security issues and benefits as well as continually coming up with incentives to instill a sense of professional pride in working as a cohesive unit and, most importantly, having fun while doing it.
"After spending our whole careers working in the restaurant business, Laurie and I wanted to try our own approach," explained Cary. “The underpinning to our business model focuses on maintaining a base of long term employees. Most of our staff has been here over ten years and many have worked here since we opened in 1988. Our success is tied directly to our staff’s dedication to excellent service. We unabashedly try to inspire that dedication and loyalty with perks such as culinary trips to places like Napa or Italy, for instance. Obviously, these trips make our staff more knowledgeable, but the real value is in getting there as a group, traveling together and discussing what we’ve learned. We may leave as a group of employees and managers, but we return as friends and members of a team.”
The restaurant is a complex of four dining rooms and four dining patios; each smartly furnished a little differently using rich woods, used brick, lighting design and fireplaces to create a comfortable setting for the restaurant’s Northern Italian cuisine. To complement an evening of fine food, the newly remodeled Spaghettini Jazz Club has become a regular stop for the very best jazz musicians and vocalists in the business. The restaurant’s Sunday Brunch hosts a long standing and popular radio program, Smooth Jazz Sunday Brunch, sponsored and broadcast live all day by The WAVE 94.7 FM, the top jazz station in Southern California.
“What can I say,” Cary laughed, “I thought a piano player would add a little atmosphere to the place. One night the piano player invited a saxophone player to sit in with him and now we’re one of the most well known jazz clubs on the West Coast. It’s a fun side-business that complements the restaurant perfectly and, again, we have great managers who care passionately about what they are doing, like everyone here.”
It should be pointed out, in the interest of full disclosure and just plain interest, Melissa’s sponsors a raffle of our best gift baskets at these Sunday brunches. Members of the Melissa’s staff regularly take part in a segment of the radio program giving tips on fresh produce. Spaghettini has been a loyal customer and partner of Melissa’s since the company started supplying fresh produce to restaurants throughout Southern California and Las Vegas several years ago.
“Our restaurant has an interesting dynamic of business and pleasure, which changes depending on the day of the week and time of day,” observed Cary. “Because of our location, on the border between Los Angeles and Orange counties, at the confluence of three major freeways systems, our lunch crowd Monday through Thursday consists of some of the most influential people in industry both regionally and globally; there is definitely a power lunch atmosphere to the place that is fascinating to watch,” Cary admitted. “As the sun goes down, the music pulls in a clientele from Santa Barbara to San Diego, all arriving with appetites for some fine food as well as good tunes. These two completely different types of clientele keep the staff challenged and service sharp.”
Spaghettini Italian Grill and Jazz Club means different things to many people. For the businessman needing a common ground, it provides the perfect atmosphere for solidifying profitable relationships. To those who appreciate the fine culinary flavors of Northern Italy, it never disappoints with an evening of delicious delights that leave the day’s struggles at the door. For those looking for a tuneful Saturday night, the quality of entertainment is dazzling. For the people who work there, Spaghettini has become a vocation not just a job. And for those of us at Melissa’s, these people have become friends and partners, not just customers.
If the reader is fortunate enough to be in the region, a trip to Spaghettini is guaranteed to be a special dining and musical experience. Otherwise, anyone can taste just a bit of the restaurant’s comfort zone by treating themselves to Chef Victor’s tasty Butternut Squash Risotto with Prosciutto wrapped Scallops recipe. Enjoy!
To learn a lot more about the pine nuts used in this month’s featured recipe, see "Pinion Dominion" in this month’s Produce Corner.
