The query, as offered in a Reddit Ask Me The rest discussion board, appeared easy. Harmless, even. Actor Nicolas Cage used to be answering questions from Reddit customers all over a press junket for The Insufferable Weight of Huge Ability. Along side the standard film and appearing queries got here this nonsequitur: “What’s your favorite pasta form?”
“I as soon as went to an Italian eating place in San Francisco about 25 years in the past with Charlie Sheen as a result of that they had sq. tube pasta and he used to be very eager about making an attempt sq. tube pasta and we did and we liked it such a lot we went again tomorrow to take a look at it once more,” Cage spoke back.
For media masking the AMA, Cage’s resolution used to be only a kooky one-off. However for the food-obsessed and San Francisco locals, the solution activate a amusing, low-stakes spherical of information superhighway sleuthing. It offered a two-part thriller: What pasta form is a “sq. tube”? And what San Francisco eating place serves, or served, a dish the actors liked such a lot they ate it two times in two days?
For those who’re in search of the tl;dr, right here it’s:
The pasta? Paccheri.
Where? Cafe Tiramisu on Belden Position, circa 1997-ish.
For those who’re within the lengthy model, on the other hand, it’s a amusing one. Making an attempt to determine the eating place turned into a shuttle again in time for San Francisco locals, who attempted to recall eating places from that technology. It additionally posed a pre-internet thriller, one thing now not simply solved by way of a handy guide a rough Google seek. Marcia Gagliardi, the meals columnist referred to as Tablehopper, has been masking the native meals scene for 16 years. But if offered with the quote, she used to be at a loss. “This is completely strange!” she wrote. “How humorous and bizarre. Not anything is ringing a bell…I’m questioning in the event that they had been calamarata?”
The following choice used to be to take the query to Twitter. The guesses got here pouring in speedy, a who’s-who of past due ‘90s eating places: Rose Pistola, Tosca, Rubicon, Aqua, Unique Joe’s, Scala’s, Mona Lisa, Buca Giovanni, Tommaso’s, Caffè Macaroni. Former Eater SF and San Francisco Chronicle editor Paolo Lucchesi solicited solutions from pals and native cooks on Instagram. Along side the above eating places, extra theories had been floated, in a digital shuttle down reminiscence lane: Ciao, Globe, Prego, Blue Fox, and Postrio had been named. An information superhighway sleuth shared an Interview article, which detailed a flight Cage and Sheen took in combination to San Francisco, to additional seal the chance of the tale. As for pasta shapes, the ones guesses got here in abundance, too: chitarra, mezze maniche, tonnarelli, paccheri, garganelli, and, yep, ravioli.
San Francisco, I would like your assist. In a contemporary AMA, Nicolas Cage used to be requested what his favourite pasta form is, and now not most effective is his favourite a sq. tube pasta, however it’s one thing he used to be served in an area eating place c. 1997: %.twitter.com/cE2PiZ07La
— Dianne de Guzman (@diannedeguzman) April 18, 2022
Rose Pistola used to be a most sensible wager, seeing as the way it used to be a contemporary, buzzy Italian eating place on the time, however proprietor Laurie Thomas, reached by the use of electronic mail, didn’t have any solutions both. Thomas didn’t have the entire eating place menus to go looking thru, she instructed Eater SF, and a glance during the Rose Pistola cookbook for a garganelli dish (her wager at the pasta) grew to become up not anything. Any other useless finish.
Rubicon used to be any other eating place title discussed, however this time with a Cage connection: Francis Ford Coppola, famously identified for steering The Godfather amongst a legion of alternative motion pictures, may be Cage’s uncle and an investor within the now-shuttered, however well-remembered, eating place. Stuart Brioza, who now runs State Hen Provisions, as soon as labored at Rubicon however picked up the chef helm round 2004. He did verify he used to be by no means passed down any sq. tube pasta dish from cooks sooner than him. Nonetheless, he used to be sport to throw out some possible eating place names. “The query is, is that this a vintage dish? Or is this sort of an interpreted [dish and] any individual got here up with some extraordinary in finding,” Brioza mused. “And if that’s the case, I imply, you might have eating places like Cypress Membership on the time. I’m making an attempt to consider the extra fashionable California cooking that used to be taking place.”
On the lookout for an injection of extra eating places to touch, I reached out to the prolific Fb workforce, San Francisco Remembered. Inside of a couple of mins, workforce member Mark Kohtz with a bit of luck spoke back: “Cafe Tiramisu. You’re welcome. I if truth be told noticed him there two times.” Intrigued by way of the arrogance, a handy guide a rough seek published that to nowadays the eating place serves a “sq. spaghetti carbonara” and opened in 1992.
Co-owners Pino Spinoso and Giuseppe Scoppetto had been each provide and desperate to take a decision Tuesday afternoon. When requested if Nicolas Cage ever visited Cafe Tiramisu, Spinoso stated sure, and discussed Cage additionally visited his different eating place, Little Town, then stopped — “He’s the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, proper?” Certainly. “I’m from the similar the city of his uncle’s, you already know, Francis’s folks in Basilicata [Italy],” Pino shared. “When Francis used to come back to one in all my eating places sooner than, he used to take Nicolas when he used to be younger and Francis got here to this eating place a few instances.”
When requested what the “sq. tube pasta” dish will have been, Spinoso started describing a ravioli dish — then offered a special resolution. “The opposite one used to be referred to as paccheri,” Spinoso stated. “It used to be a pasta [dish] with an oxtail ragu. They’re the scale of a part candle, after which whilst you cook dinner it, they get flat a little bit bit. Virtually like a rigatoni, however wider, higher.”
Remaining, however now not least, did Francis’s nephew ever display up with Charlie Sheen? Sure, showed each Spinoso and Scopetto. “It used to be when Sharon Stone used to are living proper around the side road from Tiramisu,” Spinoso stated, naming the development. “Sharon used to be a excellent buyer of Cafe Tiramisu, on the time she used to be married to Phil Bronstein.”
The checkable portions of Spinosa and Scopetto’s tale do are compatible the timeline: Spinosa discussed Basilicata, and Coppola’s grandparents (now not folks) are famous as being from that area. Stone used to be married to Bronstein from 1998 to 2004. That used to be sufficient for me, case solved. However whats up, Nicolas, if this tale ever reaches you and you wish to have to verify or deny, achieve out. I’d love to talk.
