Italian restaurant that pushed Tacoma’s boundaries for just more than 4 years to close

Crudo & Cotto, a modern Italian restaurant in Tacoma’s North End that imbued Pacific Northwest ingredients with techniques from the chef’s native Umbria, will close after Valentine’s Day service next week.

Owners Kathryn and Giampaolo Falchetti, who also operate Basilico Ristorante in Olympia, first announced the closure in a newsletter last month. In a phone call with The News Tribune last week, Kathryn pointed in part to staffing issues and the related challenges of running two restaurants in two cities as reasons for the closure.

“We appreciate the people who have been with us from the beginning, both our staff and our guests,” she said, growing emotional, especially in describing an employee who has worked at Crudo & Cotto since it opened in December 2019. “It’s been really lovely to share the space with people and to be part of their celebrations and special moments. We’ve been grateful for being part of that.”

In their newsletter announcement, they alluded also to “the wilds of the COVID landscape,” from takeout to all-season deck dining.

“We are proud of our little restaurant, the food we made, and the space we created, and we are glad to have shared it with you all,” they wrote.

Located on the second floor of the butter-yellow Craftsman house on the corner of North Proctor and 28th streets, the intimate space and the team behind it offered the city a unique experience — one that embraced the disappearing white tablecloth and served elegant plates that eschewed the typical trappings of red-sauce Italian. That meant razor-thin bresaola, rotating crudos and tartares, raw and broiled oysters, game birds (ostrich, quail) and homemade pastas, often with seafood, in preparations diners are hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

Paired with a lovely wine list and simple, satisfying desserts, it was among TNT Diner’s best new restaurants of 2020-2021.

Falchetti said staffing has continued to plague both businesses.

“We’ve been finding ourselves sort of perpetually short-staffed,” she told The News Tribune.

After reviewing the numbers at the end of last year, they decided to retain Basilico, where she said customers from the state Legislature, theaters and other downtown destinations rebounded from challenging pandemic days. Open since 2005, it has name recognition and “a mailing list three to four times as big” as that of Crudo & Cotto.

They have always been willing to train entry-level hires, said Falchetti, referencing their kitchen manager at Basilico who started as a prep cook, “but here we never really got to the place where we had enough people to move up.”

As owners, they filled in the gaps.

“The biggest thing for us is quality of life. We’re spread too thin. We don’t have the physical capacity to keep doing the work we’re doing,” Falchetti said.

Related to staffing, she admitted that consistency has at times been an issue at the Tacoma restaurant and wondered about a potential disconnect between the concept and the location, known for its walkability and daytime foot traffic. They had also selected this particular space for its private dining potential: Its back room could host parties of 20 to 30 people, but it was underused until recently.

“We love Proctor. We used to live just down the road. It definitely feels like a community,” said Falchetti. “We ended up being more upscale than the casual neighborhood restaurant that people go to grab a quick bite, but we’re not near other events to tie to an evening.”

Asked if they might eventually try again in Tacoma, she laughed. “Giampaolo has an idea for a new restaurant all the time, but right now we’re just both really tired. It’s not in the near future … Whatever we would do, it would be a different concept. We would not attempt to recreate this. This is its own special thing.”

CRUDO & COTTO

▪ 2717 N. Proctor St., Tacoma, crudoandcotto.com

▪ Wednesday-Saturday Feb. 7-10, 4:30-9 p.m. — limited reservations available and recommended

▪ Final service Feb. 14, call for possible reservation opening (prix fixe only)

This story was originally published February 7, 2024 at 5:30 AM.