If Daniel Costa has anything to say about it, foodies don’t have to travel to Italy to experience traditional Italian cuisine. The 29-year-old chef has been perfecting Italian cooking since the age of nine, when he learned how to preserve vegetables and make wine on his family’s acreage in Devon, Alta. By the time junior high rolled around, he was skipping school to watch cooking shows and falling asleep with a cookbook next to his bed.
Years later, on a break from culinary school at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, the chef took advantage of his ties to family in Italy and spent three months working his way through various restaurants in San Pietro al Tanagro in Campania, Italy. “I was young and doing a bunch of elaborate dishes and putting lots of ingredients in each dish and going crazy with experimenting, but then I went to Italy and learned to appreciate the simplicity and quality of ingredients,” he says. “For me, that was the biggest eye-opener and changed my outlook on cooking.” Back in Edmonton, Costa brought his newfound skills to the now-defunct Jack’s Grill, before co-founding Da Capo café, which was successful but was sold as Costa moved on to other opportunities. He dabbled in private catering before landing at Red Star Pub, where he revamped the menu to reflect Italian gastro pub cuisine.
Today, Costa is the owner and executive chef of Corso 32 in Edmonton, which recently celebrated its third anniversary. The 32-seat eatery, named for his father’s address in Italy, pays homage to the chef’s Italian roots with a life-size picture of his family on the wall and a communal table. “It’s a bustling place. That’s how I like restaurants — I like them to be exciting and more of an event rather than going into a calm place. I like it to be really lively. And, when you have less seats, you can really zoom in on the quality of the food,” he says.
The menu, which changes seasonally, marries traditional technique with home-grown ingredients from Alberta. “Right now on the menu we have a Parsnip Agnolotti [with Amaretti Pangrattato, 35-year Balsamico and Parmigiano ($25)], and I’ve never seen that in Italy,” he explains. “Parsnips grow so beautifully in Alberta, and we have a really good relationship with a farm that grew us tons of parsnips.… So, we don’t stay true to the ingredient, we stay true to the methods,” he adds. Other staples on the menu include hand-made pasta (made daily), artisanal cheeses, such as Pecorino Toscano Stagionato with house-made Pear Marmelatta and pink peppercorns ($14) as well as a 100-per-cent Italian wine list. “I would expect if an Italian came in here, they would relate,” says Costa.
The chef, who was named on Western Living magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 list, and whose restaurant earned a spot on EnRoute’s Best New Restaurants list, is eager to innovate. He’s launching two Italian concepts, including a late-night eatery and sparkling wine bar as well as a 100-seat trattoria. “Edmonton’s culinary scene is booming,” he says, adding the incoming competition keeps him on his toes. “We need more pressure, and we need more people coming downtown.”
