Malfatti: Napa’s legendary dumpling
By Lisa Adams Walter
NAPA, Calif. — Nearly 100 years ago, according to local lore, the first malfatti were made at the Depot Restaurant in what was then Napa’s Little Italy. The long-vacant green building, still naturally situated next to the railroad tracks on Soscol Avenue near Third and Fourth Streets, was a restaurant, bar, hotel and also the home of Theresa Tamburelli.
Today, Clemente’s Authentic Italian Take Out in Napa continues year-round the food, flavors and traditions, including the pasta dish called malfatti, that were established at the Depot. In addition to malfatti, the menu includes traditional Italian fare such as ravioli, gnocchi, spaghetti, meatballs, minestrone soup, risotto, veal scallopini, pot roast and a variety of sides and sandwiches all ranging in price from $8 to $26. A dozen malfatti or ravioli, roughly one serving, is $10.
Clemente Cittoni, who immigrated to California from Italy’s Lake Como in the 1950s to the town of Tracy first, and then on to Napa where he met his wife Mary Rossi Cittoni, believes that malfatti was accidentally created in 1925.
For decades, Clemente and his entire family worked at the Depot. He moved up from dishwasher to busboy to kitchen help, and then ultimately became lead chef and partner in the business, mentored and trained by Mrs. Tamburelli. The Depot was sold and closed a couple of decades ago, but eventually the Cittonis relaunched the menu in a takeout model so that the traditions would live on.
The legend of the malfatti, as told by Cittoni’s daughter Joanne Cittoni Gonzalez, is that a traveling baseball team was in town from San Francisco. “They called Theresa Tamburelli and said ‘We would like to have ravioli,’ but back in the day, they did not write anything down, and it was a busy day for that time, and without refrigeration she would make just a little bit of ravioli every day. She would go to her room, as she lived in the hotel, and there was a big white sheet spread across her bed covered with the fresh ravioli. She would take a dozen or two at a time and cook them for customers.”
By the time the baseball team arrived that evening in the mid ‘20s, the ravioli for the day were sold out. To take care of the hungry men, a very apologetic Tamburelli told the coach that she had a little extra ravioli filling and that she would throw something together for the team.
“That is what she did,” Cittoni Gonzalez explained, “She took the ravioli filling, though it did not have the ham that is usually later added to ravioli. She doused it with some flour, because that is how you do it. Made little bite-size meatballs in her hand, then threw them in the hot water for a minute or so, added some sauce and cheese, then sat the team down and fed them soup, salad and the pasta. The team ate them all, then cried out for more!”
After that meal, the baseball coach said that he was so sorry for being upset because his team was so satisfied with the makeshift meal. Tamburelli’s young children loved the dish too, asking their mother what she wanted to call it. “Malfatti,” she said, according to the story, which in Italian slang, Cittoni Gonzalez explained, means “mistake.”
Napans in the know have been crying out for more malfatti ever since. Last month my daughter Grace, a fourth-generation local, was home visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday. “Mom, have you ordered the malfatti for Christmas yet?” she asked.
Feeling a bit panicked and envisioning a holiday disaster without malfatti (in our family this would be a HUGE mistake), I admitted that I had not. “We have to do it, NOW. It won’t be Christmas without malfatti!” she exclaimed.
She was right. You have to get on “the list” or you might not be able to get your malfatti, and for some people they also order ravioli. I was driving out to Carneros at the time, and within a minute she had Googled the phone number, called Clemente’s Authentic Italian Take Out and Joanne Cittoni Gonzalez picked up the phone. We continued a tradition our family has held for decades by placing our holiday order.
Malfatti are miniature torpedo-shaped spinach dumplings, a pasta that cooks quickly and is then served with a deeply flavored red meat sauce, and of course Parmigiano cheese. The precise ingredients of the pasta and the sauce are never disclosed and closely held. These are the trade-secrets, the intellectual property of the Cittoni Family. While some of the ingredients are obvious, such as spinach, eggs and onions, the secrets remain.
While the cook time of the dumplings is fast, the process of making the malfatti and the sauce is lengthy. Each dumpling is rolled by hand, placed in perfect rows on large kitchen sheets and dusted with flour. Malfatti is cooked-to-order. The pasta, while it can be slowly reheated, is made for each customer; it is not boiled in advance.
The tomato-based red sauce is layered with flavors of herbs, vegetables and slow-cooked meats. The sauce simmers, takes more than a day to make and finishes each evening at 9 or 10 p.m. “It’s a 15 or 16-hour process,” says Cittoni Gonzalez.
Warm, satisfying and although rustic, to me Clemente’s sauce tastes like my hometown. Malfatti is one of the lasting flavors of authentic, Old Napa. Just as they used to do at the Depot Restaurant, Clemente’s Authentic Italian Take Out also serves only Sciambra Bakery sourdough bread.
In my memory, at the Depot Restaurant, guests really did experience the feeling of an antique depot as well as a home. The entryway felt like a retro, enclosed porch where one would wait for a bus or a train, the room was lined with Naugahyde furniture and linoleum floors. It was busy, and if you did not have a reservation, you would often have to wait. Running the front of the house was Joanne Cittoni Gonzalez, who worked as the hostess and covered many other roles at the restaurant for more than 20 years.
There was a backroom of the restaurant near the kitchen covered in antique floral wallpaper. I recall three generations of our family having dinner in that room with my grandparents, Midwestern transplants of German heritage who arrived in Napa in the early 1930s.
Not far from this room, right past the kitchen, was the back door to the Depot. For decades, even into the 1990s, year-round locals would park near the railroad tracks, bring their own pots from home and then order malfatti and ravioli to go. “At Christmas there were people lined up around the building with their pots,” Cittoni Gonzalez recalls. “They would wait two or three hours.”
With orders placed in advance during the holiday season, customers are now assigned a specific time to pick up their malfatti. However, a handwritten, spiral-bound notebook is still used to schedule and track each order. This year I scored a prime-time slot early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Every year, I see people I know from Napa stopping in to get their special family meal from Clemente’s, and it is always especially fun to wish the Cittoni Family a very Merry Christmas.
Today, Clemente, 85, and Mary, 87, remain involved in the business, teaching their adult grandchildren the culinary methods and secrets, while Joanne, 60, continues as general manager and orchestrates the front of house, a counter where customers either order ahead or walk in and order to go.
Grandson Joseph Gonzalez Cittoni, 37, Joanne’s son, runs the kitchen, having been mentored by his grandfather, Nonno Clemente. When the demand is high, such as during the holiday season, Clemente and Mary’s sons Dino Cittoni and Steve Cittoni, as well as grandson Jesus Gonzalez Cittoni, jump in to help.
I now understand more than ever why the Depot Restaurant was what it was, and why Clemente’s cuisine continues to be so important to those of us in Napa that grew up as regular patrons. The meals always seemed to be home cooked, and in that place and time memories were made.
While there are local debates about whether or not malfatti was truly invented on the spot, certainly the malfatti that Clemente’s Authentic Italian Take Out continues to make is the one that for me immediately brings back the past. Flavors and scents of my earliest years flash by with each warm, savory bite. Our family traditionally begins this more casual holiday meal with antipasto, then accompany the malfatti with a simple green salad and Sciambra bread. Typically we serve an approachable yet still robust red wine such as a cabernet franc or merlot.
“The legacy of my dad and of the Depot has got to continue,” Cittoni Gonzalez said, “Most of the original people involved have passed away and their children did not want to continue. Yet generations of people from Napa, sometimes fifth and sixth generations, still come to Clemente’s. People come from all over the world for our malfatti. That’s a testimony, that’s a blessing. You don’t find that kind of love and honor these days. We are super honored and super proud to be part of something so special for the Napa Valley and for the world.”
In addition to the holiday season, everyday meals and special occasions such as weddings, birthdays, retirements, graduations and funerals have featured malfatti on the menu. Napans have been fortunate to enjoy the cuisine of Clemente Cittoni for generations.
Clemente’s Authentic Italian Take Out is still taking holiday orders and is currently located at 1758 Industrial Way off California Boulevard in Napa. Takeout cuisine is available Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. To order or get on the holiday list, call (707) 395-8684 or via DoorDash or Clemente’s on the Square App. Follow on Instagram at @ClementesTakeout and Facebook at Clementes Famiglia. In early 2024, the Cittoni Family plans to move Clemente’s Authentic Italian Take Out to a new location (the former Dickey’s BBQ site) in the River Park Shopping Center on West Imola Avenue in south Napa.
Lisa Adams Walter is a writer, storyteller, editor and publicist who has been published in media outlets locally and nationally. A California wine country native, she brings intimate insight to an array of wine, food, arts, entertainment, lifestyle and travel stories.
Brava, Lisa, for this comprehensive story about the Cittoni family and their long-lasting malfatti! You had my mouth watering and my memory alive, of delicious eating at The Depot. Grazie tanto!