14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Coast Weekend’s local
restaurant review
FULIO’S PASTARIA
Fulio’s Pastaria chef
dreams up exciting,
borderless specials
Review and photos by
THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA
MOUTH@COASTWEEKEND.COM
FACEBOOK.COM/MOUTHOFTHECOLUMBIA
S
ean Whittaker has earned his
stripes.
Teamed with Jonathan Hoff-
man, Whittaker scored back-to-back
wins in the Iron Chef Goes Coastal
competition in 2014 and 2015. In a
pressure-packed stopwatch environ-
ment, in front of judges and a crowd
of hundreds, he proved he could
think and execute on his feet.
Back then, Whittaker was rep-
resenting Astoria Coffee House &
Bistro, a restaurant on the forefront
of Astoria’s food-y revitalization.
And though he and ownership parted
ways before opening day, Whittaker
also had a hand in shaping Car-
ruthers’ original menu.
In the spring of 2017, Whittaker
became executive chef of Fulio’s
Pastaria. The restaurant, which
opened in the early oughts, was in
the midst of a torch-passing. After
14 years, server Allan LaPlante
assumed ownership. With extensive
knowledge of the business, LaPlante
chose to keep what works while
making room to honor Whittaker’s
polyglot inspiration.
The ostensibly Italian restaurant’s
regular menu grew to incorporate
influences from around the Mediter-
ranean. But it’s wider than that: Each
week Whittaker dreams up four
or five specials, the provenance of
which knows no boundaries.
You never know what you might
find — a spicy South American
steak, a dish rife with African spices
or raw fish, Japanese-style.
Which is exciting. And why
anytime I’m nearby I peak in to
see what Whittaker’s whipped up.
Recent specials have included tuna
poke tacos, springer salmon with
Hawaiian fried rice, Portuguese
mac and cheese, razor clam hush-
puppies and a hulking tomahawk
pork chop.
Which is to say: Don’t attach
an inordinate amount of weight to
Fulio’s “Pastaria” moniker. If you’re
not feeling like housemade noodles,
there’s plenty else to choose from.
That said, settling on what to
order can be vexing. There’s a lot.
I do, however, find myself most
drawn to the specials. While Fulio’s
regular Italian/Mediterranean menu
— teeming with olive oils, toma-
toes, seafoods, steaks and pasta —
is reliably traditional, the specials
are sparkling and adventurous.
To wit: The regular menu steaks
come with a red wine demi-glace
reduction or compound butter.
The Santa Maria Flank steak
special shimmered with flourishes,
including anchiote, New Mexican
hatch chili, corn-avocado salsa and
chimichurri.
Compared to the specials,
much of Fulio’s regular menu feels
two-dimensional. The specials are
in 3D: deeper, more intense and
vivid.
Which is not to shake a stick at,
say, the tangy Caesar salad (gener-
ously priced at $5), or the familiar,
meaty and grandma-approved
Ragu ($15). The Checca ($18) — a
linguini tossed with olive oil, lem-
on, white wine and prawns, basil,
tomatoes and garlic — has that
elemental, whole-food simplicity of
Mediterranean cooking, though it
remained but the sum of its parts.
Like many of the dishes at
Fulio’s, the Checca was dotted
with a few fire-engine red Peruvian
peppers known as “sweety drops.”
Bursting like juicy grapes, these
joyous firecrackers are a Fulio’s
Rating:
1149 Commercial St.
Astoria, Ore. 97103
503-323-9001
Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Monday-Saturday, 5 p.m. to 9
p.m. Sunday
Price: $$ – Entrées $10 to $30
Service: Charming, casual,
occasionally missing
Vegetarian / Vegan Options:
Numerous
Drinks: Full bar
KEY TO STAR RATING SYSTEM
Poor
Below average
Worth returning
Very good
Excellent, best in region
Pacific Northwest Gumbo
Ahi Salad
Shakshuka
signature. More than the two or
three in the Checca, I would’ve
welcomed a dozen.
My favorite of the specials I
sampled was the Pacific North-
west Gumbo ($24), made regional
by the addition of rockfish, Puget
Sound steamer clams and Willapa
bay oysters along with linguiça,
bell peppers, tomatoes and okra.
In a heaping portion teeming with
the textures of so many portions,
Whittaker makes a strong case for
the normalization of a Northwest
gumbo. Heck, add some Dunge-
ness crab and, come summer, go
whole hog with the local harvest of
carrots, root vegetables, squash and
so on.
Aside from his borderless
inspiration, the gumbo hits on an
important aspect of Whittaker’s
style: It was hefty. Even with
fancier preparations he retains some
blue-collar sensibility, a reflection
of the character of Astoria itself.
Similarly mirroring its sur-
roundings, Fulio’s manages to be
welcoming and casual. It’s hardly
stuffy but not quite elegant. There
are white napkins, but no white
gloves. Service sometimes varies,
hindered in part by the building’s
deep floor-plan. With the kitchen in
the very back, servers sometimes
vanish for extended periods, which
is a bummer when you just need
a spoon. (Doing these elongated
laps, servers at Fulio’s must be in
marathon-ready shape.)
But Whittaker’s execution is
unwavering. The yellowfin tuna
in the Ahi Salad special ($15) was
expertly seared. The accompanying
creamy Southwestern vinaigrette
dressing was a close cousin to
Caesar.
The Shakshuka ($14) appetizer
special was very much at home in
the Mediterranean vein. A Middle
Eastern dish of eggs poached in to-
matoes, peppers, onions and cumin,
Checca
it nailed that breakfast-for-dinner
sweet spot, the remaining sauce and
yolk beckoning to be mopped up
with grilled pita bread.
It was as so much at Fulio’s is:
serviceable, stout, globally aware.
Which makes the America-cen-
tric baseball analogy I’m about to
use feel kind of weak, but I can’t
think of how to tell it with the lan-
guage of soccer:
Fulio’s is like a hitter with a
great batting average — one who
gets on base with ease and regular-
ity, who hits a lot of doubles and
triples but not a ton of home runs.
The foundations of Fulio’s many
flavors are unshakable but, because
there are so many of them, rarely
developed into the sublime.
So if you’re in need of a home
run, I’d start by checking out the
specials. CW