After five years dormant, the spot where Marcelli’s Italian Restaurant served its ravioli for 90 years is once again seating customers, now under the banner of Smalls, the new name carved into a redwood sign out front (1323 Fifth St., Eureka). The “fusion comfort” restaurant is open for lunch with plans to add dinner hours down the road.
Chef and owner Scott Boone says he chose the name for the scale: a small dining room, a small kitchen, small plates and a small menu of only things he loves. The 8-by-10-foot kitchen — overhauled with new appliances and with prep and dishwashing moved to the former storage room behind it — isn’t even the tiniest he’s worked in. “I’ve cooked on boats,” he says with a chuckle.
Boone says hanging around his uncle, a French chef, started him off cooking, and Boone never looked back. “I just picked it up. It was always something I was gonna do,” he says. “Never had any doubt.” However, his earliest jobs had him cooking Italian dishes and that cuisine, rather than French, has stuck with him.
A summer trip to Ukiah when Boone was still living in Texas gave him a taste for the North Coast and he decided to relocate. So he put up a Craigslist ad advertising as a chef looking for work and got a bite from Indian Creek Lodge and four years cooking at Indian Creek Café. Four years later, he moved to Weaverville and opened Café on Main, a larger restaurant where he stretched out into a menu of comforting American and Italian classics with international tweaks and wild game.
“The bigger size ended up being the worst enemy,” Boone says. Well, that and COVID-19, since Café on Main opened in March of 2020 as lockdown was declared. He lets out a grim laugh recounting the day. “We survived on takeout like everybody else,” he says, but the economy in town fell sharply and filling all those tables — and turning a profit —was sometimes a struggle.
Smalls, Boone says, allows him more flexibility. “I like to do a lot of stuff myself,” he says, like making house mayonnaise, cheese, ricotta and ice cream — not always conducive to stocking a higher-capacity dining room. “This is my last restaurant, so I want the freedom to do what I want to do.”
What Boone wants to do is continue in the style of Café on Main. Some classics, like Caesar salad, should be left alone, he says. Other items are an opportunity to try something different. The Sloppy G swaps in spoon-tender roasted goat in a tomato-based sauce with peppers and onions, topped with slices of fresh mozzarella, cole slaw and crema spiced with guajillo chile ($17). As with the original Sloppy Joe, the bun is no match for the filling, which recalls a homey Italian pot roast, and the arrangement is best approached with a fork and a sense of humor. The optional homemade steak fries come with jackets on and crisp at the tips. “I like goat and during the wintertime,” says Boone. “When it’s a little cooler, I like to bring in wild game.”
The Crab Fat Chicken Wings arrive as if from the oven of a glass blower, shining with a sticky caramelized glaze amped up with red curry and fermented crab paste, and garnished with fresh basil, cilantro and chopped peanuts ($15). The layered flavors are a welcome surprise.
Expect to see crème brûlèe on the menu ($8). “It’s my weakness,” says Boone. For the soft opening May 16, spoons cracked open simple, rich coffee custards, but mocha, white chocolate and Mexican spiced chocolate will be in the rotation, as well.
The eclectic selection of art on the walls, some by staffers or longtime customers from Café on Main, is mostly for sale, for which Smalls doesn’t take commission. “Artists, musicians and cooks all run in the same circles,” notes Boone.
Boone looks forward to serving the small plates he has planned for when Smalls adds dinner hours. He likes the idea of people being able to try a few different things from the menu and keeping the prices within reach.
“I want a lot of people to be able to eat my food,” says Boone. “I like all different kinds of people in my restaurant, just like I like all kinds of art.”
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400 or [email protected]. Follow her on Bluesky @JFumikoCahill.