Really Cookin': Missoula's Hottest Chefs
By Montana Living/www.montanaliving.com
If Missoula is a melting pot of people, ideas and lifestyles, its restaurants are a saucepan of flavors with the same type of variety. A good (no, great) meal or treat can be found - all within an easy bike drive from each other. Restaurants like the Depot, Shadow's Keep, Zimorino's and the Bridge (under the former owners of the Lily) have traditionally kept palates happy over the years. Newer places like Tipu's Tiger and Chinook's are keeping the jaws busy, inside and out. A full exploration of Missoula's restaurants is almost impossible in our limited space. A look at any restaurant in the Garden city is almost unfair to the others overlooked, so apologies are in order to those not making the cut in the following. Talks with some in the business kept bringing up the same names, hence our choices. As it says on the delivery truck: "Enjoy life. Eat out more often."
Perugia Old World Cooking
1106 West Broadway
543-3757
Tues. thru Thurs 5-9
Fri., Sat. 5-10
Years after Ray Risho thought he was done with restaurants his wife, Susie Risho, "practically insisted" he start Perugia Old World Cooking, now in its fourth year of business. She felt the community needed such a restaurant, says Risho, and she wanted to see their sons involved. Today, Sam Risho is the general manager, Abe Risho is the kitchen manager and Ephraim Risho is their graphic artist. Also, Ray's nephew, Chris Robertson, supervises the dining room.
"I wouldn't have done it without them," says Risho, who left the business in 1988 because of its ability to drain an owner. Another condition: it could only be open 22 hours a week and they couldn't expand. Only the occasional Valentine's day or catered function will fire up the ovens on a Sunday. It's not easy in a with food and service like Perugia's. Twenty people are required to pull it off.
Risho doesn't spend the time he used to on the line and says he is mostly is concerned with marketing and menu planning, but his influence over Perugia shines through the pride and care put into the restaurant's food and service by his staff. Perugia prepares authentic cuisine from places all over the world. Risho's regular menu represents ten to 15 countries, predominately Mediterranean. Each month, a cuisine of the world is celebrated (France, Portugal, Morocco, Turkey, Iraq, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and East African nations are some, so far) through a five course meal. According to Risho, world travelers and visiting foreigners are often impressed by his dishes' authenticity. "It gives me an opportunity to express myself; to let my creativity flow."
Tuesdays have a separate Italian menu, Thursdays a Greek. Live music is an accompaniment. During those nights, heaping platters which will serve at least two are available for between $12 and $16. Even though helpings are large and prices relatively inexpensive on such nights, "the food is not just slop. It's my food," says Risho, pointing out that his not only does one of the dishes feature homemade pasta, but also as many as six types of mushrooms (it doesn't hurt to have a fresh baguette served on a cherry wood plank on the side).
As for service, frequent mandatory meeting has wait people "know not only cooking procedure, but what that procedure means." Also, they are grilled on the foods' countries of origin and their histories. A glance at Perugia's well-filled guest book mentions service.
"That's what I emphasize. Old World hospitality."
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