For Immediate Release
CHEF DONATO SCOTTI READIES THE DEBUT OF HIS FIRST
SAN FRANCISCO RESTAURANT, CENTO OSTERIA
Opening this spring, the restaurant will focus on simple osteria food from different regions in Italy, paired with artisanal wines and cocktails
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – April 4, 2018 – Chef Donato Scotti, proprietor of Donato Restaurant Group, will open his first San Francisco restaurant, Cento Osteria, this May. Located along the city’s eastern waterfront at the corner of Brannan and the Embarcadero, Cento Osteria will feature simple, seasonal fare in the style of a classic Italian osteria, including pizza, pasta, grilled meats and seafood, and small plates to pair with wine and cocktails.
Donato Restaurant Group comprises Donato Enoteca, a popular Italian dining destination celebrating its 10th anniversary next year in Redwood City; CRU, a European-style bar and wine shop, also in Redwood City; and Donato & Co. in Berkeley, which Scotti opened in 2017 with fellow Italian chef and longtime friend Gianluca Guglielmi, who is now executive chef for the Donato Restaurant Group. Cento Osteria will be Chef Scotti’s fourth restaurant.
“At Cento Osteria, we want guests to experience the kind of simply prepared, everyday food that Italians enjoy at osterie all over Italy,” said Scotti. “You can come here for pizza or pasta, order a steak, or share a custom-sized selection of small bites with friends over wine or cocktails at the bar in a fun and familiar space.”
The menu will be divided into four sections—starters, pizza, pasta and mains and sides—with no more than six seasonally curated options per section. Each item will be associated with a particular Italian city or province. 
Like Donato & Co. and Donato Enoteca, Cento Osteria features a live fire, where grilled meat, seafood and vegetables are specialties of the house, along with wood-fired thin crust pizzas. Additionally, all of Cento Osteria’s pasta will be house made, salumi will be cured onsite, and ricotta will be prepared from scratch. There will be a small selection of house-made desserts.
The beverage menu will offer 15 to 20 wines by the glass and a rotating menu of eight to 10 cocktails. The bottled wine list, with wines primarily from small-production Italian wineries, will be divided by price point rather than by varietal—the same format that Scotti originated at Donato Enoteca. The bar will offer an extensive grappa and amaro collection.
The spacious restaurant, which features dark wood accents throughout, will accommodate up to 110 diners, including 30 in the bar area. A wrap-around outdoor patio will open sometime in early summer, with seating for another 30 guests.
When it opens, Cento Osteria will serve apericena (Italian-style, pre-dinner appetizers) beginning at 3 p.m. and dinner daily, with lunch service to follow later this spring. The restaurant is located at 100 Brannan Street in San Francisco, between Embarcadero BART and AT&T Park. For additional information and updates, please visit www.centoosteria.com, Instagram at @centoosteria, or Facebook at centoosteria.
About the Chefs
Chef Scotti grew up in a small town near Bergamo, Italy, where he studied at the Instituto Alberghiero di San Pellegrino culinary school and learned his craft in various Michelin-starred restaurants in Bergamo. He then moved to the United States at the age of 21 and held positions of increasing responsibility at such restaurants as the legendary Valentino in Los Angeles and Il Fornaio in the Bay Area. In 2004, Scotti designed and 
opened La Strada in Palo Alto, before establishing Donato Enoteca in Redwood City in 2009, then Desco in Old Oakland in 2013 (now closed), and CRU in November 2016. He met Chef Guglielmi in 1999, beginning a longtime friendship and collaborative cooking partnership. Together they opened Donato & Co. in Berkeley’s Elmwood neighborhood in the fall of 2017.
Chef Guglielmi grew up in Vicenza, Italy, surrounded by a family of chefs, and began working at his family’s gastronomia at the age of 13. He attended Italy’s famous culinary school, Recoaro Terme, then worked at a succession of highly regarded Michelin-starred Italian restaurants. In 1993, he opened his own wine bar and gastronomia, Il Vicolo. When he moved to the Bay Area in 1998, he became executive chef, food research and development, and vice president at A.G. Ferrari Foods. He returned to Italy in 2010 and opened Ristorante La Berlera in Riva del Garda where he worked side by side with his wife and son. Guglielmi and his wife moved back to the Bay Area in 2017 to join the growing Donato Restaurant Group.
Photo Credits: Nadia Andreini