Turns out, the fact that Foglia in Bristol is an entirely vegan restaurant, from the menu to the wine list to the furnishings, is just about the least interesting thing about it.
Rumors swirled before the restaurant opened on State Street in the center of town last summer, as happens in a closely knit community. The space had a legacy of much-loved eateries— chief among them Persimmon before it moved to Providence—but chef/owner Peter Carvelli was committed to Foglia forging a history all its own.
Carvelli’s resume might be one of the most unexpected compared to other chefs in the region. Early in his career he was photojournalist at a newspaper, later becoming an attorney and today, simultaneously practicing law in Massachusetts and Rhode Island while spearheading Foglia. “I joke I’m going to have a very interesting obituary someday—far in the distance, I hope,” he says with a hearty chuckle.
A vegetarian for most of his adult life, Carvelli enrolled in a six-month course at Rouxbe, an online culinary school, simply to broaden his home cooking skills just five years ago. He was on the cusp of turning 50 and quickly discovered a passion for every part of the process.
With the encouragement of friend and vegan baker Becky Morris, owner of Celebrated bakery in Richmond, Carvelli reached out to Massimiliano “Max” and Stefano Mariotta, the father-son team behind Rosmarin, a popup restaurant concept at Vinya Test Kitchen, which operated for a time on Providence’s Westminster Street.
“I called him and said, ‘I’m a plant-based …’ —I think I had the gall to call myself a ‘chef ‘ then—and said, ‘I’m looking to do a pop-up. Can we do something?’” Carvelli prepared a seven-course tasting menu for the duo, but only got to the third course before the Mariottas offered him a weekly slot in their regular rotation. Sold-out seatings became commonplace with Carvelli at the helm and, when not lawyering, he was perfecting a spectrum of plant-based recipes. Carvelli also honed his craft as a private chef for hire, cooking for small events and inhome dinner parties under the company name Twelve Plants.
By the time the Bristol restaurant space became available last summer, with the backing of a small group of like-minded investors, Carvelli was ready to shoot his shot. Foglia is the Italian word for “leaf,” and that’s about the only hint when it comes to the restaurant’s plant-based, “Italian-leaning,” menu. “But nobody knows that. Nobody even pronounces it right,” Carvelli laughs. “You won’t see ‘plant-based’ or ‘vegan’ on the website or published anywhere. I’m not ashamed of it or hiding it, but … we’re just a good—I hope— restaurant, [doing] good food.”
Luring vegetarians, carnivores and the downright curious alike since opening, the 29-seat restaurant is often booked solid for dinner Thursday night through Sunday night. (Monday through Wednesday, Carvelli is playing litigator.) “I’m shocked sometimes by the people who come in,” says the chef. “There are people who come in kicking and screaming with friends … They say, ‘I’ve never had a vegan meal in my life,’ and I’m, like, ‘Have you had a salad? Have you eaten an apple?’”
His personal journey to becoming vegan isn’t particularly compelling. He stopped eating meat as it’s better for the environment and, for optimal health benefits, he eventually graduated to veganism. It works for him, but he’s hardly evangelical about it.
“I have said this since the beginning: This is a restaurant, not a soap box. I will not preach to you … if you have a steak for dinner at home tonight, that’s your choice. If I came out and was preachy, we’d be empty— and I don’t want to be preached to if I go to a vegetarian or vegan restaurant.”
Longtime Bristol resident Alayne White has exactly zero aspirations of becoming vegan, adding she’ll take a good sirloin “any minute of the day.”
“I love meat. I’m never giving it up,” declares White, who enjoys Foglia immensely. “It’s gourmet food that’s beautifully done. It expands your palate without necessarily making you feel like you’re doing something hippie or weird, because it’s not that.” White believes Foglia is what Bristol needed, saying it “adds color” to the town’s otherwise seafood-driven, predominantly casual dining scene. Her most recent meal there was butternut squash ravioli, one of many pasta dishes Carvelli has perfected, sans eggs, cheese or other animal products.
“I started making vegan pasta as soon as I became vegan. After some experimentation, I have come up with a recipe that works for filled pasta shapes—agnolotti, ravioli and others,” says Carvelli. Using a combination of 00 flour and semolina flour, with silken tofu used as one of the components to replace eggs, Carvelli’s pasta is light and springy; delicate enough to absorb myriad sauces and vegan cheeses but dense enough to house any number of plant-based fillings. Typically he heads to the kitchen on Wednesday evenings to prepare about eight pounds of pasta for the week, leaving some for his own cravings. “I love a dish of pasta, from simple garlic and oil to a plate of ravioli with tomato sauce—absolute comfort food to me.”
Last fall, Foglia was named a Best New Restaurant 2022 by Vegetarian Times—just one of 11 selected restaurants nationwide. Carvelli was blindsided, delightfully so. The esteemed publication cited Foglia’s “luscious housemade pastas” and “cashew cacio e pepe spaghettini and a ruby-hued beet ravioli, plumped with his cashew ricotta filling and topped with pickled fennel.” Though these seemed to have taken up residency, Carvelli’s menus are seasonally driven, and he’s not afraid to switch things up even weekly. (Carvelli has since reengineered his recipes so they are also nut free.) On the plate, Carvelli’s creativity is untethered, exemplified in chickpea fries stacked like a Jenga tower, or rolled beet rosettes dusted with a dehydrated carrot-beet crumble.
As he approaches the completion of his first year in business, Carvelli is still enamored with it all. “I have butterflies in my belly every day at 5 o’clock when we open,” he concedes. “It’s amazing.”
Foglia
31 State St., Bristol
401.261.8173; FogliaBristol.com
Open for dinner Th—Su
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