I have eaten more than my share of vitello tonnato. I think it’s fair to say it’s an odd dish, certainly for most Americans. It’s made from cold poached veal that is thinly sliced and dressed in a room temperature sauce made of canned tuna usually mixed with capers, lemon, anchovies, and olive oil, and sometimes mayonnaise or occasionally cream.
I’ve eaten quite a bit of it thanks to a press trip I took to Italy around 20 years ago in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Turin is the capital of the region of Piedmont, a landlocked area that borders France and is known for its rich, opulent food. Although it has no coastline, the region has long had a robust trade with Liguria, just south of it, hence its access to anchovies, for which the Piemontese would often trade their local hazelnuts. The canned tuna for which tonnato sauce is named actually was a fairly late addition to the recipe, canned food not having been invented until the Napoleonic wars of the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Anyway, vitello tonnato being a prized regional dish and my visit being during the summer, the appropriate season for eating a cold veal dish, it was served to us a lot, sometimes twice a day.
Perhaps that sounds tedious, but Italians often eat what’s in season, or seasonally appropriate, all season long, and then they stop. Visit during artichoke season, and you will likely be served artichokes at lunch and dinner.
As a food writer, I actually find that to be a great way to get to know a dish: Eat it many times in quick succession so you can grasp the nuances.
Tonnato sauce doesn’t exactly jump out at you. To me it tastes like flavorful tuna salad, which is not a bad thing, but it’s not like the punchy condiments that are currently on-trend, such as chili crisp, ranch dressing (especially popular with a little spice these days), or hot honey and all of the other sweet-and-spicy options that are out there.
Tonnato is more subtle — mostly umami with the right amount of salt and acid.
But it has been popping up a lot lately.
Wayfarer Tavern, a pizzeria in the Cincinnati suburb of Dayton, Ky., that I recently wrote about, serves it in a fairly traditional way, simply swapping out the veal for mortadella, bologna’s fancy cousin, which owner Mike Dew said is more approachable to his guests. He also augments the traditional sauce with Dijon mustard, thyme, and rosemary, and leaves out the anchovies.
It becomes a sandwich spread at Flour Moon, a bagel shop in New Orleans. There, too, the anchovies are left out but Castelvetrano olives are added. It’s served on a bagel with sliced local tomatoes garnished with olive oil, dill, and chives.
Flour Moon's bagel with tonnato sauce | Photo by Casey Joiner
Alan Sanz, the chef of Mírate, a Mexican restaurant and bar in Los Angeles whose beverage director I interviewed for our Menu Talk podcast earlier this year, makes a tonnato sauce out of canned tuna, pickled jalapeño peppers, anchovies, capers, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, egg yolks, and olive oil and serves it on a beef tongue tostada.
Sheamus Feeley, consulting chef of Fino, a restaurant at the All Inn Hotel that I mentioned in this column a few months ago, developed a dish called Medi Nachos that features kettle-style potato chips with garlic-heavy toum sauce, prosciutto, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and a tonnato that’s actually closer to the classic pre-canning variety. It’s made with white anchovy, onion, parsley, oregano, capers, sherry vinegar, garlic, and olive oil, but no tuna.
I also noticed it on the menu here in New York City at Carnegie Hospitality’s new Voco Roofbar in Times Square, where it rounds out a beef tartare that also has ‘nduja, eggs, and potato chips. I don’t know exactly what’s in the sauce, but it’s no doubt tangy and umami-rich, which should round out the other ingredients well.
This little trend is a contrast to the bigger flavors we’re seeing on menus, but it does dovetail nicely with the increasing popularity of premium canned fish — so premium that it’s called “tinned fish,” and so popular that a can of tuna was just added to a salad at Sweetgreen in a collaboration with seafood company Fishwife. The salad, inspired by the French Salade Niçoise, is made with romaine and other lettuce, summer vegetables, tomatoes, pickled onions, roasted sweet potatoes, fried onions, and a hard-boiled egg, dressed in a lemon tarragon vinaigrette and served with a can of tuna for customers to add.
I could certainly see tonnato spreading elsewhere. It would be a nice salad dressing, a dip for raw vegetables, and, as we’re already seeing, a sandwich spread. Really, it’s a template of salty fish, fat, acid, and aromatics, which gives it a lot of runway. I’m curious to see which direction chefs take it next.