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Mullen: New spice for city's rich mix
By Holly Mullen
Tribune Columnist

If Valter Nassi ran the world - and frankly, I'm not sure why he doesn't - families would pitch all their cares at the front door each evening, gather in the kitchen and cook a meal together.
    Now before you get agitated about some stranger doling out impractical advice to your already overwhelmed family, hear him out. Valter, a native of Tuscany and the popular host at Salt Lake City's Cucina Toscana restaurant for nearly three years, insists his idea isn't so complicated. Anyone can boil pasta and toss in garlic, diced fresh tomatoes and some fresh basil. Even the smallest child can drizzle olive oil over hot linguine.
    "It is so important for us," Valter says, "to enjoy our families, to celebrate life with good food. So when we come home at night, we are not just walking in tired and saying 'hello' and then too bad for you, I have television to watch all night. What is so good about television? And why do we, instead of sharing lovely time with our families, open a can or put something in the microwave? We could be enjoying together in the kitchen."
    Got all that? It takes concentration to follow this man's trajectory, but it's worth it. Valter Nassi represents an important evolution in this city. He is vocal, he is ethnic, he is . . . different.
    Thank goodness for that.
    We have grown ugly of late arguing about who is here legally and who isn't, who contributes to the GNP and who sucks it away.
    What we fail to see in that argument is how everyone plays some part in the rich mix that is becoming this state, this city. Like Valter.
    He is sitting on a recent afternoon at a table covered with a crisp white cloth, soft spring light pouring into the floor-to-ceiling panel of windows at the restaurant, which is housed in the historic Firestone Tire warehouse at 307 W. Pierpont Ave.
    Then, suddenly, he is leaping from his chair, and chopping the air with his hands, or cupping them, almost prayer-like as he describes the fresh Utah spring lamb he offered on the menu a few weeks ago.
    Moments later, Valter will rhapsodize over plans to infuse risotto with fresh octopus ink - available only for a few days.
    "It is the taste of the whole sea. Magnificent."
    Valter, 60, the son of a Tuscan mushroom, truffle and olive oil broker, emigrated from Italy as a younger man to Manhattan, where he owned a restaurant. Seven years ago he moved to Salt Lake with his wife, Phyllis, and son, Enrico, now 18. He opened a restaurant in the American Stores headquarters (now Wells Fargo building) downtown.
    With his slightly wild and long gray hair and slender-fingered expressive hands, Valter quickly became a fixture downtown. People loved his eclectic menu and his passion for food and conversation. When American Stores shut down four years ago, the end was traumatic.
    "Yes, sad, but this is when I truly fell in love with Salt Lake," he says, jumping up, again, from the table and throwing his arms in a sweeping gesture toward the windows. "Out there, people we hardly knew called and said 'Valter, is there anything we can do for you and your family? How can we help?'
    "This you do not see in every city. There is great compassion here and I will be always in love with the people of Salt Lake."
    Now he is one-third of the brains and personality behind Cucina Toscana, along with operations manager Michael Aaron and owner Ken Millo, an architect who has rehabilitated much of the decaying business and residential area near Pioneer Park.
    For Valter, friends, family, work - all are interchangeable.
    "Grazie, grazie," he says, cupping his hands again. "To Salt Lake, it is all grazie."
    hmullen@sltrib.com

http://www.sltrib.com/mullen/ci_2692532/ci_2692532