photos and words by Shab Ferdowsi
When I met Francesco Allegro for the first time last year, he was a Starchefs Rising Star nominee and I was on assignment to take photos of one of his pasta dishes at Rossoblu in Downtown LA. He was the resident fresh pasta artisan at the Bologna-inspired restaurant and was starting to attract some acclaim. It was still the part of the pandemic where we were masked and socially confused, but we still managed to sneak in some small talk between shots. I found out that he was from a small city in Puglia, the region in the South of Italy where I had lived for a winter, and he made music in his free time outside of the kitchen. After my shoot, I grabbed a couple of bites of the incredibly delicious and aromatic culurgiones di arso he had made and headed out with so many questions.
A year later, I found myself in the Capri Club kitchen with my camera in one hand and half a freshly fried suppli in the other, grease slathered on my shirt, laughing at Francesco’s casual tutorials on how to eat Italian street food without a fork and knife. He had recently gotten hired to build out the food menu at the newly opened Capri Club, an Italian aperitivo bar in Eagle Rock, and I wanted to hear all about it (and gush about Puglia with someone who also missed it!). It was only my second time meeting the chef but he welcomed me so warmly into the tiny space while he prepped for the week it was like catching up with an old friend.
As Francesco pulled his suppli as wide as the cheese pull allowed him to and while we sloppily dipped pieces of arancini into roasted pepper crema, I got to hear his story.
From Puglia to California
Born and raised outside of Bari, Puglia, Francesco Allegro didn’t grow up wanting to be a chef nor did he plan on moving to America. After high school, he spent nine years touring actively with his band, Mai Personal Mood, doing the grind on and off the road. But as tours go, they must always come to an end and you always come back home. That’s when Francisco started working in restaurants.
“I was broke from music. That's why I got into kitchens,” he told me as we tore into the frittatine di pasta. “I started at 22 as a server, the second year I became a manager, then I asked to be in the kitchen. I felt like I had a lot of competition with other people who had gone to culinary school, but then I fell in love with pasta.”
The absolute serendipity of the next phase of Francesco’s life is straight out of a movie. He was 27, deep in honing his craft of making pasta, and had been working through various reputable restaurants in Italy such as Cast Alimenti, Re Mida Ristorante, Vecchia Scuola Bolognese, and La Casa del Tortellino. On the side, he would teach music, art, Italian language, and pasta workshops. In 2017, one of his language students who happened to be a notable restauranteur from Los Angeles, Chef Steve Samson, asked him to come out to California to become the head pasta chef at his DTLA restaurant, Rossoblu.
Francesco said yes, and soon he was living in Koreatown taking the purple line metro into the depths of Downtown— that’s right, he took on LA without a car!
A New Club on the Block in Eagle Rock
Over time Chef Allegro became known as the pasta guy in LA, building relationships with other local chefs, teaching workshops around town, and soon in other parts of the U.S. too. A couple of years ago, one of his workshop students, Robert Fleming, told him about a new project he was dreaming up. An Italian aperitivo-inspired bar right on Eagle Rock Blvd where he wanted Allegro to create the full food menu. Simple bites inspired by Italian street food that would keep customers wanting a second or third spritz.
Capri Club finally opened on June 17 and the first few weekends were nuts. Lines forming before doors open, tables full until last call. I met up with my new friend Francesco one evening after he closed the kitchen to chat some more. We sat on the sidewalk patio with a couple of small and stylish glasses of an amaro aperitif and soaked in the rumble of the crowd on the otherwise quiet street.
“It's not just me. Everyone is surprised,” the chef said, laughing and shaking his head. They barely did any promoting and somewhat sprung up out of nowhere, yet every night they’re open is a party on Eagle Rock Blvd. “There's not a lot [else] going on here. When we do service, we actually wear Walts’ t-shirts because we love our neighbors, and our neighbors come here too. Then when we finish here at 11, we go over to Walts for hot dogs and beer. So, you know, it’s like we complete each other. “
This sense of community is something Allegro and Fleming both really care about and want to keep alive. The bar is quickly becoming a watering hole for the neighborhood, especially for locals who live within walking distance and don’t feel like driving for a casual night out. Down the line, they’d love to bring in chefs from around LA and the world to provide a space to showcase their work.
A Happy Balance
“But we’re not trying to be ambitious,” Francesco kept telling me. “We want to enjoy the best life we can also have while we’re doing service.”
A bold statement for a chef on the rise, but it’s what makes Francesco’s story and ethos stand out to me.
We talked about his busy schedule juggling mornings in the basement at Rossoblu and evenings working at Capri Club barely catching the daytime in between bus rides to Downtown or Ubers to Eagle Rock.
“But you know it’s funny. I enjoy life sometimes more when I'm here because here every day people are coming to say hi—they just jump in the kitchen! I actually don't know how to split myself between this person, this brand, these people. So I'm happy about it. You know, I'm really happy when I go back home. I feel like I haven't seen the daytime a lot, but I feel full.”
Throughout the night his friends and coworkers would swing by our table for a quick chat, a swift cheers, or a refill on his drink and I saw this fullness in front of me. There’s a noticeable emphasis on happiness and the enjoyment of life when he talked about his many endeavors and how he tries to balance them all. Ambition is not top of mind.
In Italy, he’s a musician, here he’s been the pasta guy, and now he’s running a new kitchen. Anyone else could easily take this momentum and sprint up the hill to fame and burn out. But maybe because he did that uphill battle with music, maybe because he did it as a chef in Italy, or maybe simply because he is Pugliese at heart, chef Francesco Allegro isn’t trying to sprint anywhere just yet.
“I'm an only child. I love and miss my parents. I have friends, I have family all over Southern Italy and Europe. So I still dream to go there and be there for them, not because I feel obligated, but because I love them. Being there gives me the energy to recharge and come back and say, “Yeah, let's do it!" But to go there for just two weeks, two weeks out of the year is not enough. It's not enough.
Many things are happening right now, and it’s crazy. I didn’t expect all of this. That’s why sometimes even if I want to go back home [to Italy] I don’t want it to read as a step back. My goal is balancing life between here and there.”
****
We don’t often talk about balance when we talk about creativity or craftsmanship, especially not when we talk about passion. But what if passion is more ambiguous? What if enjoying life could be a top priority? What is the point of ambition if we can’t have a good time along the way?
I’m looking forward to seeing where life takes Francesco Allegro. It’s refreshing seeing a creative person in the city of dreamers and seekers pay attention to the moments in between. As of right now, he plans to turn the back patio of Capri Club into a lounge area for his kitchen team to have a space to enjoy their time, too. The rest, we’ll see.
