Bradenton Gets New ‘Italian Sashimi’ Restaurant!
With eat Organico Ristorante Italiano, co-owners
Simone Salustri and ��iovanni Tulino offer diners
organic, authentic Italian dishes, most of which are
prepared in styles native to their Italian hometowns of Anzio
and Napoli, respectively.
While their concept is itself uncommon, what really sets eat
Organico apart from other Manatee County restaurants is its
Crudi Marinate �� ��ve or so appetizer-sized (and appetizerpriced)
dishes featuring raw seafood. For example, there’s
Snapper Straccetti, thinly sliced raw snapper marinated in
“secret” spices and wild Italian mushrooms.
The Carpaccio di Polpo is thinly sliced raw octopus served on
cold mashed potatoes. Alici Marinate features white anchovies
imported from Italy and marinated in olive oil and vinaigrette,
topped with avocado and tomatoes.
Crudo, or more accurately, pesce crudo (translated in English
to “raw ��sh”), was called “Italy’s answer to sashimi,” in an article
about the food trend that was published in the September issue
of Taste online magazine. The article goes on to say that crudo,
which can be found in many coastal restaurants in Italy, is mainly
about “appreciating seafood at its pea�� freshness” - seafood
that’s thinly sliced and usually served with nothing more than
olive oil, salt, sometimes pepper, and an acid such as lemon
juice or vinegar. For crudo to wor�� well, quality matters �� the
seafood needs to be in-season and readily available. The olive
oil and any seasonings must be high-quality, as well.
Salustri and his family in Italy own four restaurants in Anzio, a
municipality on the coast of the Lazio region of Italy, south of
Rome. All of them specialize in fresh local seafood, and offer
pesce crudo. Salustri’s vision for his Bradenton restaurant was
to offer something similar. But while eat Organico’s offerings may
be prepared in the same style as those bac�� home, they feature
seafood found in local waters, rather than in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The olive oil and other seasonings used in his crudo are high
quality and imported from Anzio. Thus, it wor��s well, at least
according to the many satis��ed diners who’ve reviewed the
restaurant on TripAdvisor and Yelp, and the locals-turnedregulars
who’ve discovered eat Organico through word-of-mouth.
Because he wanted his restaurant to feature farm-to-table dishes,
Salustri gets his grass-fed meats, eggs and produce from local
farms. Everything is organic, even the ��owers, he said. There
are offerings that are gluten-free, vegetarian, pescatarian and
vegan. With the seasons, the menu changes.
eat Organico does not offer a full bar, but does stoc�� wines from
all over the world, including cases that Salustri has hand-pic��ed
on his multiple trips to Argentina, Peru, Chile, South Africa,
France, ��ermany, and of course, Italy. About 25 percent of the
wines are organic, Salustri said.
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