La Familia di Jeshua
679 Wabash Avenue
Terre Haute, In. 47807
Phone: (812) 234-2232
Jeshua Campbell has brought the Italian pizza-calzone dining bistro experience to Terre Haute
Jeshua Campbell has done something no one else in the local pizza biz has attempted: He’s opened the kind of pizza-calzone dining bistro that is common (and always busy) in Italian cities but still fairly rare in all but the biggest U.S. cities.
By day, La Familia di Jeshua is the Crossroads Cafe, at 679 Wabash Ave. At 4 p.m., though, the lights are dimmed, pressed gold cloths cover the laminate tables, and the sounds of Andrea Bocelli and Louie Prima fill the air.
The familia (“family” in Italian) includes chef Jeshua, his youngest brother, John, who waits tables and creates breathtaking cheesecakes, and Jeshua’s wife, Sarah, who also serves in the dining room. Crossroads owner Boo Lloyd is part of the family, too: She’s Campell’s aunt. Lloyd happily expanded her restaurant kitchen to make room for a giant four-tiered Blodgett pizza oven and the culinary creativity of her nephew.
Campbell has been up to his elbows in pizza dough since he was a teenager, learning the basics at Papa John’s then Pizza Magia. The “dining” elements of his education came during three-and-a-half years as a chef at Pino’s Il Sonetto. As much as he enjoyed the action there, Campbell saw a window open when Pino’s owner, Susan Monts-Bologna, decided to sell the restaurant and return to her acting career. Like many young chefs, he longed to put his mark on his own place.
“It just seemed like time to move on,” he said.
Tall, dark-eyed and circumspect, Campbell resembles the actor, Nicholas Cage. He and his two brothers grew up at-home in a kitchen.
“Our mom taught us a lot. We were always around her (learning) how to cook. She was a single mom and she knew we were going to be doing a lot of things on our own,” he said.
Campbell was so secure as a cooking male, he took home economics at Terre Haute South Vigo High School where he learned about baking, recipes and “making sure things come out the way they’re supposed to. It was the one and only time I ever made baklava.” Throughout his junior high and high school years, Campbell worked on and off for his Aunt Boo at her bakery and deli, then on Sixth Street near Wabash. From Lloyd he picked up the art of the grill and “multi-tasking.” In his early 20s, Campbell was accepted as a student at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have the funds — it was $10,000 a semester,” so he moved to Florida and spent nine months making money as a roofer. But the doughboy inside called him back, and he hooked up with Pizza Magia. In late-2002, he went to work for Monts-Bologna at Pino’s, where he refined his pasta and seafood skills and fell in love with his co-worker, Sarah Munoz.
On my first trip to La Familia, my dining companion remarked, “This dough is so rich, it almost tastes like pastry.”
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Bingo. But the secret is not butter or shortening, it’s extra virgin olive oil, patience and the proper, stainless steel storage containers for individual discs of dough. Then the big Blodgett works its magic, producing pizzas and calzones that are crispy outside, sweet and just-chewy in between. Campbell has some specialty topping/fillings that include either spinach or basil pesto, creamy artichoke and a chicken Alfredo sauce that was a revelation. When I saw it on the menu I sneered (Alfredo on a pizza??), but I was won over with the first bite. When the filling is tucked inside a hot calzone, the effect is like an Italian pot pie, comfort food in sumptuous spades. Another way to Nirvana is the Create-Your-Own calzone ($8.95). Campbell offers 27 items — cheeses, meats, veggies — and puts no limit on how many one can choose to cram into a pocket. A stickler for fresh ingredients — just say, “canned mushrooms,” and watch his face — he coaxes flavor from all 27.
I created a lulu calzone recently with Italian sausage, artichoke hearts, red onion and three cheeses: mozzarella, parmesan and ricotta. A visiting friend from San Francisco fairly Hoovered through it, taking time only to murmur “delicious” and “amazing.”
Speaking of amazing, while La Familia offers seven salad dressings, I’ve been incapable of getting past an anchovy-garlic-balsamic-olive oil concoction that makes me swoon with delight. Warning: The dressing is so garlic-laden, you might want to go easy. I treat it as a concentrate, using just a teaspoon and cutting that with lemon juice and more olive oil. You can take the rest home and store it in the fridge.
Prices range from $2.50 for good-sized salads to $18 for a 16-inch meat pizza with four toppings. A 14-inch spinach and pesto pizza is the least expensive of the pies at $12. Appetizers run in the $5 to $8 range and include shrimp cakes, hippie rolls and bruschetta. Dinner-size baked sandwiches — stromboli, chicken or meatball — are $6.95 to $8.50.
La Familia di Jeshua is open from 4 to 10 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 4 to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday. The telephone for takeout or reservations is (812) 234-2232.
Taken from the article Published: June 24, 2006 11:25 pm By Stephanie Salter of the Terre Haute Tribune-Star.
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