Zino Ristorante offers a warm winter welcome

Editor’s note: This story originally ran as a paid feature in EAT Magazine, featuring the best restaurants in the Vail Valley. EAT is available on magazine racks and in hotel lobbies for free.

Walk into Zino Ristorante in Edwards, and your mood will go up a notch. Something about the friendly neighborhood vibe and chicly classic décor combine to put people at ease and in the mood for a little food, a little conversation, a little wine, a little fun.

Though Nick Haley rules in the kitchen and Giuseppe Bosco sticks to all things front-of-house, both partners are passionate about great food and warm hospitality.

Upstairs is the lively bar area, with balcony seating that overlooks part of the dining room. Upholstered chairs and small tables create intimate gathering spaces, while the bar itself is a whirl of coming and going. Walk down the grand staircase to the dining room proper and you’ll find an exhibition kitchen that is at once on display and yet buffered from the tables.

“Here at Zino we try to do as much as possible in house,” says Chef Haley. “We make every piece of pasta in house, we make our own pancetta, our own burrata. You always can take more pride in something when you make it yourself.”

This commitment to making everything in house dovetails with the Italian ideal of showcasing good, seasonal products without overly manipulating them. Rather, you set them off with excellent flavor combinations. The Zino menu has a solid soul of popular mainstays — the crispy roasted chicken, the burrata, the pork chop Milanese, the pizza Margherita, for instance — that’s embellished with seasonal offerings such as the seafood-rich stew, cioppino, and gnocchi topped with comforting braised Oxtail Sugo.

So when can you serve tomatoes in the winter? When you slow roast them in a low oven for a couple hours to bring out their flavor, and then roll them out really thin. Add Panna di Parmigiano, and there you have it — wonderfully intense tomatoes, softened by the parmesan cream sauce, supple and exclamatory on the tongue. Chef Haley calls it Carpaccio di Pomodoro, and you’ll call it delicious.

But above and beyond the seasonal menu are the daily specials: fish of the day, meat of the day and usually a filled pasta of the day, too. Haley is especially excited about his new fish source:

“I get a call from the dock in Honolulu at 9 a.m. and we receive the fish by the next day at 2 p.m.”

And then it’s served later that night. If you’re lucky enough to see Mero sea bass on the menu, go for it. “It’s hands down my favorite fish,” Haley admits.

Or you can stay closer to home with the elk sausage. Twice a year, Haley brings in three full elk from Debeque, Colorado. The prime cuts are used for various specials, but he uses most of it for the spicy elk sausage served with pasta.

And don’t skip the wine list, which is extensive but manageable. Better yet, leave the decisions to Bosco, who has a natural ability to pair wines and food to make both components shine. It’s also fun to have a reason to call over the enthusiastic and energetic Italian, though he’ll likely stop by your table anyway just to check in.

“Zino is a very warm and familiar place,” Bosco says. “We have warm, friendly service. We have so many locals, and they come here not just to have pasta, but to see me or Nick or the server they want every time they come in. It’s a place that feels like home.”

via:: Vail Daily