Missing Biba’s lasagna? New Italian restaurant to open in Espanol space next week

East Sacramento residents stop by Mattone Ristorante nearly every day, peeking in to see what owner June Chang’s done to the old Espanol Italian Restaurant space at 5723 Folsom Blvd. The opening’s so close they can nearly taste it.

Mattone (Italian for “brick”, as in the building’s shell) will host invitation-only soft openings next Saturday and Sunday before opening to the public on May 18, Chang said. The former Biba bartender brought as many old colleagues over as possible, including executive chef Karel Mulac, general manager John Black, pastry/pasta chef Penny Sheriden and Italian-born lead server Gigi Monni.

Mattone replaces Espanol, the iconic Italian-Basque restaurant that spent the last 55 of its 87 years across Folsom Boulevard from Corti Brothers grocery store. Espanol‘s indoor family-style dinners didn’t play well during the coronavirus pandemic, and the restaurant closed in August 2020.

Biba, too, was a pandemic casualty. The midtown Italian restaurant founded by Sacramento culinary luminary Biba Caggiano, opened in 1987 and eventually survived Caggiano herself, who died in August 2019 after battling Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Chang and the rest of the staff kept Biba the restaurant running into the next year, but Caggiano’s family opted to close in May 2020.

Chang had planned to mirror Biba as closely as possible when he first announced Mattone’s concept in February. That’s not really the plan anymore, he said. Mulac will borrow some dishes and concepts from the old restaurant, but after internal reconsideration and blowback from Caggiano’s daughters, the team has taken steps to distance Mattone from its midtown inspiration.

Mattone will sell a version of Biba’s famous lasagna on Thursdays and Fridays, but it’ll be 12 wafer-thin layers instead of 10 and available sans gluten. There’ll be a greater emphasis on sourcing from local growers like Riverdog Farm in Guinda for dishes like beet gnocchi, which wasn’t on Biba’s menu, and bottles will come from from nearby wineries like Matchbook and Boeger (based in Zamora and Placerville, respectively). Complimentary breadsticks will be made in-house.

“Biba was a great restaurant in (Sacramento’s) history. I really respect it, but my direction is a little different than (it),” Chang said. “We all loved her. Everybody loved her. But her story’s done, right?”

The menu will change monthly based on what customers want, Sheriden said. To start, it’ll include classics like penne all’Amatriciana and veal Milanese as well as saffron risotto and caviar-topped crab salad with fennel mousse. Housemade desserts like gelato and espresso-ricotta cheesecake have made their way over from Biba as well.

Mattone will seat up to 120 people inside once social distancing regulations are lifted, with no outdoor seating. Opening hours are 5-9 p.m. Thursday, 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 5-9 p.m. Sunday; lunch will likely follow.

This story was originally published May 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.