Restaurant Highlight: La Trattoria, The Blackberry Cafe

Edited 12/31/2013

For this Restaurant Highlight, I'm going beyond Redding and covering one restaurant in Arcata, California, and one in Thomastown, Ireland.


La Trattoria (Arcata)

Used with permission from James Becker of La Trattoria.

http://www.latrattoriaarcata.com/

Review: The best Italian food I've had in Humboldt County is here.  When I was attending Humboldt State University, I went here for special occasions: end of a semester, birthdays, and the like.  There is a rotating menu, so the choices are different every time.  I especially like their pasta dishes, but everything's good.  The service is great as well.

Geography: Like many other national cuisines, "Italian cuisine" is a blanket term for many styles of cooking found within the region.  La Trattoria's rotating menu uses many local ingredients, which vary depending on season.  In the winter months, they use dishes from northern Italian cuisines, and from southern Italian cuisines in the warmer months.  Not only does this allow the restaurant to use fresher and more in-season local ingredients, but it also allows it to focus on many climactic areas of Italy, a few at a time.


The Blackberry Cafe (Thomastown)

The staff of the Blackberry Cafe.  (Used with permission from Jackie Hoyne of the Blackberry Cafe.)

http://www.theblackberrycafe.ie/

Review: On my visit to Ireland, I stayed at the Carrickmourne House B&B in Thomastown for a total of two nights.  For those not familiar with Thomastown, it is a small riverside village in the southeast of Ireland.

While in Thomastown, I often ate at the Blackberry Cafe.  It is the quintessential Irish cafe: local ingredients, good food and drink, and friendly people.  The scones and the tea are the best I've had.  If you're in Thomastown, I suggest giving the place a visit.

Geography:  In the Irish countryside, "local" means local.  Even in places such as Arcata in the United States, many foods are branded as local, even if they are sourced up to 250 miles away.  Irish localism is more strict.  In rural Ireland, if you see a dish advertised as locally-sourced, it's probably 15 miles away or less.  This definitely holds true at the Blackberry Cafe, where most items are local.  This could be due to the high density of farms in the Irish countryside -- look from any hill (and there are many hills) and you will see at least two.  The abundance of small farms makes getting truly locally-sourced food much easier.