From Rome to Your Home: Family traditions become a family business
PORTLAND, Ore. - When Stefania Toscano and Lawrence Mc Cormick decided to move to the Northwest, they had two goals in mind: carry on the traditions of their homeland, and make a living doing so.
Chef Toscano and her husband, Sommelier Mc Cormick, moved to Portland from Rome, Italy, in June 2008 with their two young sons, 4-year-old Sean and 6-year-old James. By that winter, they had embarked on a plan to open an Italian deli -- one that represented their combined passion for good food and sustainability.
Eight months of detailed planning and long hours later, the couple quietly opened Taste Unique at 2134 S.E. Division St. in July 2009 with a specific intention – to offer authentic Italian cuisine using the highest-quality, local, sustainable ingredients that Portlanders can cook at home.
Carrying on the family tradition
Born just outside of Naples in 1970, Chef Toscano was raised in central Italy in the town of Perugia where she grew up learning family recipes from her mother and aunts. In Italy, much like the Northwest, a meal is all about gathering together the family and using locally grown foods at their peak.
“Everything was made from scratch, including our sausage,” said Toscano with a pronounced accent. “My father was an agriculturalist, and each November he would get a pig and young cow from a friend who had a farm.”
The family used the meat to prepare what they would need for the upcoming year including home-made prosciutto, salami and sausage. “Everyone in the family had a job, mine was to peel the garlic,” she said.
Toscano moved to Rome in 1997 to assist in the opening of Le Cornacchie, a restaurant and bar where she then worked for two years. After leaving the restaurant for a career as a communications manager, she fed her passion for cooking by attending the Gambero Rosso cooking school and teaching classes on traditional Italian cooking.
While working for the Sony press office, Toscano coordinated the launch of Sony Playstation PS2 in Milan. There she 
met Lawrence Mc Cormick who was working in external relations and marketing for Tech TV. Mc Cormick was born in Providence, R.I., in 1968 to an Irish father and an Italian mother. In 1972, he moved to Rome with his mother and brother where he lived until moving to Portland. He attended architecture school, but spent 10 years as a communications/ marketing consultant.
Like his wife, Mc Cormick has a profound passion for food as well as wine. He attended classes at the Italian Sommelier Association in Milan for three years where he refined his palette in a region known for great wine. After a brief courtship, Toscano and Mc Cormick married in 2000 and soon after began their family.
Over the years, the pair visited the Northwest a few times and fell in love with the area. “We only knew one person in Portland, our friend Stephen Tobler who is an architect that also recently moved here,” said Mc Cormick. “He agreed to help us with our deli. At the time, I had no idea that he was an award-winning designer.”
Tobler has worked on numerous projects around the world including the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Canal + Headquarters in Paris and the U.S. Courthouse in Manhattan. “I’m pretty sure this is the smallest project he has ever done, and we’re grateful,” Mc Cormick said.
A sustainable kitchen
Tobler also shared the couple's vision for sustainability. He crafted an interior for Taste Unique that is fairly simple, yet incorporates highly stylized components Tobler designed himself.
Along the length of the kitchen stands a sizeable counter treated on the exterior with beautifully finished fir strips running horizontally with an alternating corner detail. “This reclaimed fir was actually the original floor in our Eastmoreland area house,” Mc Cormick explains. “In fact, we used the same wood (planed down) to build our café tables.”
Although the space is modest in size, with seating for only eight, it boasts a very high ceiling that has a suspended wooden grid. The ceiling treatment is also salvaged wood, beautifully aged cedar from the Mc Cormick's former deck.
When visitors walk in the door, they're met immediately with the aroma of freshly baked salty Roman focaccia, or pizza bianca (Italian for white pizza), which Chef Toscano prepares every hour. Everyone is offered a free slice, either served plain or stuffed with mortadella, salami or Nutella.
At the counter, a deli case is packed with freshly made fettuccine and tagliolini, hand-sliced by Chef Toscano, as well as her signature traditional lasagnas made with béchamel, ragu, mozzarella and authentic parmegiano. They also offer vegetarian lasagna prepared with fresh local zucchini and thyme. Prices range from $5 to $18
for full, take-home dishes that can feed up to a family of four -- affordable food, with a richly drawn heritage.
Included in Taste Unique's regular menu are canneloni with a choice of spinach or meat or zucchini, baked risotto pie, and ravioli. There are daily items added depending on the availability of fresh produce supplied by local farmers markets and those items vary by season.
In addition, Chef Toscano offers a variety of homemade sauces such as ragu bolognese, marinara, mushroom and sausage, and amatriciana sauce. For those with a sweet tooth, Taste Unique makes tiramisu with fresh mascarpone, homemade Lady Fingers (known as savoiardi) and fresh moka-brewed coffee as well as a variety of pastries.
“We really wanted to replicate the appeal of a traditional Italian kitchen,” Mc Cormick said. “We just like the family atmosphere of the kitchen.”
All offerings are packaged to go and Taste Unique can prepare special orders if patrons call ahead. The kitchen is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., with a complete menu at tasteunique.com.