Sonoma County loves an Italian restaurant. Maybe it’s our broad swath of Italian immigrants; maybe it’s simply the enduring appeal of pasta and wood-fired pizza. Either way, it’s no surprise that Capriciano Osteria is already packed with eager diners a week after opening in downtown Santa Rosa.
The tables are filled with the classics — warm focaccia, burrata salad, ravioli, risotto and affogatos. The only real surprise is that the chef isn’t Italian. He’s Turkish.
Chef Baki Bekci grew up in his family’s restaurant in Fethiye, a port city and district on Turkey’s southwestern Turquoise Coast, where small fishing boats brought in the day’s catch and the menu centered on seafood and mezze. He later worked in the kitchens of Four Seasons hotels in Istanbul, Los Angeles and Calistoga before founding Mezzeluna in Cotati, which he has since left.
Now Bekci is running his own kitchen in Santa Rosa, in the former Tipsy Taco space, once home to the Acapulco Lounge. He has transformed it into a cozy dining room flanked by two large fireplaces, with an outdoor patio larger than most in the region…