A Cook’s Tour

Guided by Rina Tonon, owner of Café Cortina, we take a culinary excursion through the Italian section in Windsor. Although it’s just across the border, it feels a like a world away

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 Fallea drizzles truffle oil on his mushroom risotto at Il Gabbiano. The cook’s tour of Windsor’s Italian food businesses includes backroom views, thanks to the inside connections of Tonon and Soares. Behind-the-scenes glimpses include cake baking at Aurora Bakery, where owner Joe Maria creates traditional confections.

Photographs by Cybelle Codish

Whatever the method, both agree that, after thawing, you just add olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and parsley.

It’s nearly time for lunch and Tonon is on her cell with Il Gabbiano, where owner Joe Fallea has agreed to serve a special lunch for her guests.

The route to the restaurant includes stops at Milena’s Bakery, La Stella Supermarket, and the Mediterranean Seafood Market.

At La Stella, Eugene Publiese, the owner for 40 years, claims the “biggest pasta aisle in Ontario.” There’s more cheese sampling, including Paron (made from sheep’s milk in Hamilton, Ontario).

Tonon points out canned light tuna packed in olive oil, saying, “I don’t know how people can eat it in water.”

At Il Gabbiano Ristorante on Erie Street East, which runs through the heart of Windsor’s Italian district, Fallea greets us on the sidewalk with his three young children in tow.

Inside the sunlit café, where tables are dressed in white linen, Fallea and his staff serve sparkling water, the house red, a lightly dressed green salad, and wonderfully satisfying porcini mushroom risotto that’s finished with truffle oil and shaved Parmesan.

“Spectacular,” Tonon announces. And that verdict came even before the heavenly tiramisu arrived with yet another espresso. The wine, the flavors, and the sense of being on vacation encourage wide-ranging conversation that begins with more talk of food. 

“My aunt from Italy, she makes her own balsamic,” Soares says. “She boils her wine and adds vinegar. It was the best balsamic I ever had.”

“Because you were in Italy,” Tonon says. True. Travel whets the appetite and the hunger travels home with you as a pleasant souvenir.

Talk of making tomato sauce (remember a tiny bit of butter) turns to Italian tradition. “Italian women, when we got married, our husbands gave us the money and we saved,” Soares says. “You know, make a pot of lentil soup.”

Then Tonon steers the talk toward the relationship of Detroit and Windsor and the need to capitalize on the international cachet. “Little Windsor has a heart and soul made up of family people,” she says. We touch on politics, first ladies, finding good men, cruise vacations, and steamed lobster, until it’s time to leave for one more stop.

As we drive to Aurora Bakery, the street scene includes men at coffee-shop café tables; older women in proper skirts, blouses, and cardigan sweaters; and a well-dressed man beside his Ferrari. Our guides point out the Angolo Blue Café, with its bocce court, and the Sorrento, one of the enclaves oldest cafés, they say.

“A lot of Italian people still live here,” Soares says. “The Church [St. Angela] is here. Erie Street is here. They can walk to the market every day.”

We pull to the curb outside Aurora Bakery and find owner Joe Maria in the back room wearing a muscle shirt and looking a bit like Nicolas Cage (the baker) in the movie Moonstruck.

He’s known for making cassata, a ricotta cake for the “real Italian bride.” It’s almost like a cheesecake, he explains as he expertly frosts a sponge cake created from puff pastry dough like cannolis. “I’m Sicilian; I make European-style cakes,” he says. And then, as if he’d remembered his manners, he commands a young helper to fetch some cannolis for his visitors, explaining:

“You come into an Italian bakery and don’t have a cannoli, it’s like you go to Rome and don’t see the pope.” Exactly. 

Crossing the Border 

• You may bring bakery items and certain cheeses into the United States. Many prepared foods are admissible. However, almost anything containing meat products (bouillon or soup mixes, for example) are not allowed. As a general rule, condiments, vinegars, oils, packaged spices, honey, coffee, and tea are fine. Because rice can often harbor insects, it’s best to avoid bringing it into the United States.

• Bringing fruits and vegetables can be complicated. Fresh produce should bear a label indicating where it was grown. If you plan to bring fresh produce into the country, consider contacting customs at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel or Ambassador Bridge in advance.

• The civil penalty for failing to declare agricultural items at U.S. ports of entry is $300 for first-time offenders.

• Many products mentioned in this story are approved for return to the United States. They include mushroom bouillon, fresh fish (up to 50 pounds for personal use), and pastries made at local Windsor bakeries.

• Regulations governing meat and meat products are very strict. Travelers may not import fresh, dried, or canned meats or meat products from most foreign countries into the U.S.  Also, you may not import food products that have been prepared with meat.  

• For more details about bringing goods into the country as well as general information about how to efficiently cross the border (personal identification, for example), visit cbp.gov and search “Know Before You Go.”

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