Food & Drink

The Outtakes: My Review of Intermezzo Carmine

By Seattle Mag September 29, 2014

ilterrazzo-review

In the current issue of Seattle Magazine, I review Intermezzo Carmine in Pioneer Square. The most fun I had with this story was not stuffing my face with cicchetti from this new-ish Il Terrazzo off-shoot, but talking to Maria Smeraldo, Carmine’s widow. Our chat was a long and fascinating one that spanned the couple’s courtship, his untimely death, the possibility of a Bellevue expansion and how she’s constantly trying to honor her husband’s character. Here’s what ended up on the cutting room floor.

Why, after all this time, did you open Intermezzo?
The short story is Carmine opened—it will be 30 years in October—and I opened the first Spanish tapas bar in Pioneer Square called Café Felipe right at the same time. We met and fireworks went off and after a long courtship of about two years he asked me to marry him. When we decided we were going to have a family he said, “Give yours up,” which I was very fortunate—three crazy Italian guys I didn’t know came in and offered to buy Café Felipe and I stayed home and raised kids for the next 20 years and Carmine ran the restaurant.

You pronounce it Carmen and not Carmine, is that right?
It depends where you go. In Italy we call him Carminé (kar-MEE-nay) and when he landed in Ontario, which he was 19 years old, it was Carmen (KAR-men) and then here, in the U.S., it’s Carmine (KAR-mine), which is more recognizable. I went with what his family called him, which was Carmen—the first English translation.

Anyway, we looked several times [for a new restaurant] when the kids got older and I said, “I want to get back in the business,” but he didn’t really want me…we were both kind of powerful personalities so we didn’t work well together, but he was looking actively for me once the kids started growing.

He was here all the time cultivating old guests, new guests—he was a master of that, something I’m not very good at! I’m more like the back of the house and I’m happy there. Every once in a while I’ll put on my heels and come out on the main floor and meet people because they want to know who’s running [Il Terrazzo Carmine] now. It’s important.

When he passed away suddenly [in January, 2012], we were going out to dinner and he just fell, collapsed in my arms in our home. That was it. He left no instruction manual here for me. But I guess I knew in my heart through osmosis exactly what he needed here in the restaurant. We had date nights here. Invariably, we’d get mad at each other because I’d point out things I didn’t like. He could see I was itching to get back in [to the restaurant business] but he was very strong about keeping a traditional home life with our boys.

What did that space used to be?
It was a former rug shop for about 10 years. Stacy Logan is a wonderful designer and she was very close to my husband and she’s become very close to me as well. So, she moved to the Design Center and it seemed like a natural, as far as having operations close enough that you didn’t have to do the expenditure of big time management, especially at the level people expect from us. It seemed like a natural to introduce Seattle again to who we are and what we do. Actually, I wouldn’t say bitter, but Carmine went through years of…he didn’t believe in marketing or seeking out press—they sought him out. He was very stern about his whole ideology on marketing. To develop what we’ve got here is that the people know us are the people in the know. It’s hard to find us, but if you want us and you want what we do, we don’t need to put a big flashlight out there and say, ‘Look at us.’ We are slow, unassuming and humble and that’s the way we are as a family, so our biggest goal is to cater to what people want and what makes them feel good. Carmine was the master at really honing that skill and not worrying too much about all the competition. Competition is a great thing, but it has to be real. You can step it up as long as you see the rest of the city stepping up. What’s happening in Pioneer Square is all good and we felt we wanted to capitalize on that. We heard for year, “Oh, the viaduct is coming down, a sports arena is coming, Pioneer Square is going to be the next renaissance area,” and Carmine never believed it. We were kind of the beacon in Pioneer Square for 30 years with nobody else here.

What was the inspiration for Intermezzo?
I’ll tell you. There was a bar in Chicago, and I’m a Chicago girl, that I was in love with. It was a sexy bar and I really was getting a little irritate with the whole bar scene in Seattle and that whole grunge effect—dark, cave-like—and I thought, ‘You know, Terrazzo has always done very well with the light, the bright and elegant and why can’t younger people have that too—and value—all mixed into one. That’s the key here. They get all this, they get the waiters in white coats, beautiful surroundings, and they’re not paying more than they’re paying down the street at some sandwich shop. Honestly, that’s kind of the magic to it.

Tell me about your chef.
His name is Juan Vega. He’s been with us for about 15 years. He was the chef for Nordstrom and worked part time for us and part time for them, because he never wanted to leave my husband, he was very loyal to him. When Carmine died, the opportunity presented itself and I’m so grateful to have him. He’s boundless energy, hits the ground running as soon as he gets up. I feel very confident in terms of development because I see that’s what my role is becoming. I’m developing a really strong team with him and with my sons and two managers that I have here to move forward possibly to Bellevue, and we are looking with Kemper Freeman http://www.kemperfreeman.com/. We’re a little concerned about us being a special place. You don’t really want to multiply that, but doing another Carmine’s? Possibly. Calling it Carmine’s instead of Il Terrazzo? Possibly.

Juan was the sous chef at Il Terrazzo for several years, manning the grill, and then became the executive chef the last two years since my husband passed.

What’s the biggest difference between this menu and Il Terrazzo’s?
The thing we keep getting criticized for if anybody happens to write anything at Il Terrazzo is that it’s not very innovative, but I want to keep driving the point home: We’re not here to try and reinvent the wheel. We’re here to do an exceptional job.  We do minor changes very slow [at Il Terrazzo]. This gives us an opportunity to really show what we can do in many ways in terms of innovation, sustainability, seasonality—all those things that I think are important to Seattle culture right now and being able to provide for that. And also gluten-free. We would roll our eyes, my husband and I, ‘Oh my god, here’s the latest allergy,’ but the truth was, he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and had to eat gluten-free, so all of the sudden it wasn’t just a hip thing, it was a reality of our society.

What does this place mean to the neighborhood?
We were really scared the first two weeks because we’ve got a lot of local support for Il Terrazzo, but nobody really knew if I was going to flip it or sell it or make it gross. But they’ve come to love me like they did Carmine because they know my devotion is not for myself, it’s not ego driven, it’s for keeping the integrity of my husband’s name and the legacy of it.

Our whole goal is personal relationships. My husband understood at a very core level that this industry is always about graciousness. It’s never about you, it’s always about your customer. And not to win them, but because it’s prideful to be able to see someone experience something and love it that much. If you make it about you, then what is the point of being in the hospitality business? 

 

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