Where to Eat - CafeOliveto

Last March when my parents visited we went to this great place in the East Bay. We had a lovely dinner here after a day of shopping on my mother's birthday. With my family it's obviously Italian.

We started with the above veggies and salumi. The beets were salt roasted with toasted almonds and they were amazing - perfectly cooked and seasoned. The roasted brussels sprouts with walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette were the favorite thing I ate that night - and we ate pizza! The salty walnuts with the sweet balsamic bring out the salty sweetness of the brussels sprouts. We ordered two. We also tried the salumi platter which was well done but pretty standard.

We wanted to try a pasta so we ordered the cannelloni of green garlic, hedgehog mushrooms and fonduta Val d'Aosta - an Italian cheese sauce made with fontina. This creamy pasta was so rich and earthy and the green garlic gave it the right amount of punch.

We finished with three pizzas, the first being the above. It had pork sausage, mozzarella affumicata, tomato and arugula. The classic combination of smoked cheese and pork is pretty hard not to please.

We had the above white pizza with butterball potato, garlic and Taleggio cheese. In my eyes white pizza should go one of two ways - potato or clam. This potato pie did not disappoint and the mild, fruity Taleggio was a nice twist.

The final pie we had was my favorite - the Napoletana with anchovies, tomato, chili flakes and oregano. This is my favorite type of pizza - a classic that just screams home.