Dine for Darfur all over town

Restaurants are regularly besieged with requests for donations of time, money and resources to aid a good cause. Which explains why we often see our favorite chefs passing plates and pressing the flesh at charity events, and the many restaurant gift certificates and private dinners offered at family fundraisers and charity auctions.

Care to turn the tables and reciprocate? Here's your chance:

Next Tuesday, April 3, more than 80 neighborhood restaurants, bars and cafes are banding together to raise money for relief efforts for Darfur. Dine for Darfur offers a charitable reason to go out and lift a beer or a latte, a slice of pizza or a multi-course meal.

Participating establishments (see dinefordarfur.org) will donate 25 percent of the day's sales to Northwest-based Mercy Corps. The goal: $100,000 to fund humanitarian efforts in the war-torn Darfur region of Western Sudan. Spearheading the event are Jeremy Hardy and Peter Levy, owners of Chow Foods, who've had little trouble persuading other local business owners to pitch in.

Though conceived as a fundraiser to be held at their six restaurants, Hardy says he and Levy swiftly decided to "make this more of a grass-roots fundraiser than just a Chow Foods thing," insisting "it's not just about making money, it's about raising awareness of what's going on over there." (See mercycorps.org for more on the conflict and the aid-in-progress.) A few well-placed phone calls later, Hardy and Levy hit the grass-roots jackpot.

Joe Fugere (Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria), Ellie Chin (Ovio Bistro), Tom Buckley (Caffé Vita) and Pete Hanning (the Red Door) not only agreed to participate, they offered to recruit others willing to do the same. "What we all realized is there are a lot of people out there who know about Darfur, but when asked, they don't know what to do, what action to take to make a difference," Hardy says.

And if you don't think your dining dollars make a difference, consider this: Chow Foods donated between $13,000 and $15,000 after similar fundraisers for Hurricane Katrina and the December 2004 tsunami. "The giving of the many is so much more powerful than the generosity of the few," says Hardy. "We hope Dine for Darfur might be a lightning rod for people who can donate and participate, and we want to get other cities to follow suit."

You can call him "Al"

Luigi DeNunzio — the guy who puts the "Italy" in Pioneer Square's "Little Italy" — has done it again. No, he hasn't renamed one of his trio of Pioneer Square restaurants, he's taken ownership of a fourth: Al Boccalino (1 Yesler Way, Seattle, 206-622-7688), where you can find him waiting tables just like in the old days.

"It's twice mine!" says the owner of DeNunzio's (formerly Luigi's Grotto, originally La Buca), Café Bengodi and Pastiamo (nee Brindisi). The mightily mustachio'd Neapolitan opened Al Boccalino to great acclaim in 1989 with fellow waiter Kenny Raider.

Back then, says DeNunzio, Raider's mother bankrolled her son to the tune of $60,000, and the pair of waiters who'd worked at some of Seattle's better Italian restaurants (Settebello, Il Terrazzo Carmine) opened Al Boccalino in the shadow of the viaduct. "We put risotto and fish on the menu, brought a little zabaglione, a little carving and boom!" were a rousing success, DeNunzio rightly recalls.

By 1992, though, their friendship had faded and DeNunzio left to open La Buca. And when Raider, 51, died of a heart attack in 1996, the restaurant was sold to his friend and longtime maitre d', Carlos Tager. Tager recently sold it "back" to DeNunzio.

"I've come full circle. I needed a fine-dining place with white linen," explains the man known for his casual Italian eateries. "I've not changed anything!" DeNunzio adds, noting that chef Francisco Perez remains in Al Boccalino's kitchen, where he's been for the past dozen years. Hours: lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays and dinner 5-10 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays.

Another blast in Wallingford

Wondering what's cooking over at the original Asteroid Cafe space, now that the Asteroid's high-tailed it from Wallingford to Fremont? Go have a cup of coffee at the Bottle Rocket Cafe (1605 N. 45th St., Seattle, 206-545-4555 ) and see for yourself.

New owners Allen Chapman and Julie Bergstrom have re-envisioned the tiny Italian trattoria as a very American neighborhood cafe specializing in boxed lunches, with an eye toward expanding their business to eventually include dinnertime delivery service. "I like to say we're the least exotic place on the block," says Chapman, pointing out the preponderance of ethnic eateries that line this restaurant-heavy strip. "We're a little cafe, with 16 seats. It's cozy, it's cute, and we're trying to keep it simple."

The couple is also trying to build business slowly by serving coffee, baked goods and breakfast sandwiches to early risers during the week, adding traditional bacon-and-egg breakfasts, pancakes and French toast on the weekends and specializing in "wholesome" soups, salads and sandwiches throughout the day. Prices are modest, soup-and-sandwich combos are popular and house favorites include meatloaf served on Macrina baguette or as a blackboard "dinner special."

This is the first ownership effort for Chapman and Bergstrom, who have a long history in the local restaurant business. She's waited tables at Assaggio, kept the books at Anthony's HomePort and learned the boxed-lunch trade at Gourmondo. Chapman's a bartender certain to be familiar to denizens of Il Bistro, Belltown Billiards and Queen City Grill. In fact, when he's not making sandwiches — or deliveries — he still finds time to bartend. (You'll find him working four nights a week at Moxie on lower Queen Anne.)

When I suggested he might be burning the candle at both ends (did I mention the couple has two young children?), Chapman quipped, "It's insanity, but as Julie's brother says, 'They'll be time to sleep when you're dead.' " I say, go have a cup of coffee with the guy, and be sure to pour him one too. I'm betting he'll need it. Hours: 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Sundays.

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or nleson@seattletimes.com.

More columns are available at seattletimes.com/nancyleson