Il Cortile owners open Parchetto, a California bistro that pays homage to Paso's Downtown City Park 

Paso Robles' Downtown City Park is an inspiration to yet another gastronomic experience.

Located a stroll away from the lush green grounds, Parchetto, or "little park" in Italian, is Il Cortile owners Carole and Santos MacDonal's latest venture.

"Il Cortile's been open about 15 years," Carole, Parchetto's managing partner and sommelier, said. "[Executive Chef] Santos just likes other vehicles to express himself. This was not really planned but when we found out that the restaurant was available, we kind of looked into it."

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• Photos Courtesy Of Parchetto
• ON THEME Find the crème de menthe-loaded and chocolate-topped grasshopper among the list of classic cocktails at Parchetto, which managing partner Carole MacDonal says boosts the 1950s style of the restaurant.

Parchetto—pronounced "park-ett-o"—is a California bistro with an ever-changing menu that hinges on Santos' creativity. The July 25 dinner menu was meat forward, featuring pork chops, lamb shanks, Tomahawk steaks, and melt-in-your-mouth New York and filet steaks. Meanwhile, the appetizers that night featured mini oxtail, grilled octopus, seared scallops, tuna tartar, oysters, heirloom tomato crostini burrata, and a peach salad.

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• Photos Courtesy Of Parchetto
• FAMILIAR FACES Il Cortile owners Carole and Santos MacDonal added another feather to their culinary cap with the opening of their California bistro Parchetto.

"We didn't want to pin ourselves into a corner with a steakhouse," Carole said. "I want to do a lot of meats and fishes and things like that, but I also want to do appetizers that would be a little bit more creative or a little bit different than you would normally get at a steakhouse."

According to her, the Central Coast's fresh ingredients shine in a California bistro. While they work with local growers and peruse farmers' markets for produce, the MacDonals also draw from their own home garden.

"We have a small property where we grow our own olives, and we had our first vintage last year, and we did our own olive oil called Santino Olive Oil. We sold out already, but we have another little area where there's probably maybe a half an acre planted," Carole said. "Now we're heavy into zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, leeks, and peppers."

Fish is a heavy hitter at Parchetto too. Pan-seared black cod with lobster sauce, striped bass with mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus, and salmon with cherry tomato sauce hold their ground on the meaty menu. The seafood options informed Carole's search for local wines to put on the Parchetto list.

"I'm actually starting very slow, but I wanted to have a wide variety from light to a little bit heavier whites to work with the fish and seafood and some of the vegetable dishes and things like that," she said.

Over the past six months, Carole came across young wineries to highlight on the wine list, like Cairjn Wine Cellars and Riise Wine from Paso Robles. Parchetto also curated a small selection of European wines from Germany, Austria, Italy, and the French region of Alsace.

Drinks at Parchetto don't stop flowing with wine. The bar, headed by bar manager Nathan Dorsey, packs a punch with cocktails like the house Parchetto Paloma, a deep purple "black and blue lemon drop," and a negroni made with Scapegrace Black Gin, among others. Bulk up those cocktails with bites from the bar menu like the moreish and buttery duck confit crostini.

The MacDonals, who also once owned the Latin-inspired La Cosecha Bar + Restaurant, have an impressive eye for detail. Each menu handed to patrons bears one of four different insignia that represents the park. Over the roughly 15 years they've spent in Paso Robles, Carole and Santos have related to the downtown park through the gazebo, the library, the kids' playground, and its ability to host picnics.

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• Photos Courtesy Of Parchetto
• NIBBLE AWAY Level up your Parchetto bar experience and prep for the main course with bites from the smaller menu, like this tomato and feta fare.

"On the bottom of our menus, and when our business cards will be printed as well, there's a little icon for each of those four images," Carole said. "So maybe one time you come in and you have a venue, and it has the gazebo on it. Another time, you could have the playground or whatever."

The Parchetto font is also a callback to the park. When the designers studied the overhead view of the park on Google Earth, they realized it was split into quadrants. They grabbed the quadrants and designed a typeface that reflects those sections in each letter of the "Parchetto" name.

The MacDonals are preparing to add a lunch service by mid-August, and also hope to include brunch on Sundays. With the restaurant also perfecting its dry-aging technique for meats and anticipating the eventual shift to a fall menu, Parchetto is the perfect culinary playground for the MacDonals to work in—and for hungry visitors to savor. Just remember to stay and play long enough for the dessert menu.

"Il Cortile is very authentic Italian. When we had La Cosecha, it was more Latin and South American, Spanish," Carole said. "This one being just California cuisine, it gives [Santos] a little bit more flexibility in what direction he wants to go into. It isn't totally defined by a nationality." Δ

Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal is always ready for dry-aged duck. Quack away at [email protected].