Cd’A’ chef Angelo blends warmth, style in home kitchen

A charming whir of activity filled the Brunson family’s kitchen in Coeur d’Alene on a recent Saturday afternoon. Eight-year-old Philomena stirred fresh tomato sauce simmering on the stove as her sister, 6-year-old Anna, chopped herbs.

“Do I put the broccoli in now?” Anthony, 5, asked his father, standing on a chair over a slab of unbaked focaccia dough.

“That’s rosemary,” Angelo Martini Brunson corrected him kindly.

If anyone knows his broccoli from his rosemary, it’s Brunson. He’s the chef-owner of Angelo’s Ristorante, a sophisticated Italian eatery in midtown Coeur d’Alene.

When Brunson and his wife, Julie, remodeled the kitchen of their 1913 Victorian home after moving in two years ago, they incorporated some elements from the restaurant’s commercial kitchen while giving the space a warm, homey feeling.

“We wanted to create a place for family,” Angelo says. “Everybody’s always in the kitchen.”

The Brunsons’ first move was to knock down a wall that closed the original kitchen in, opening it up to the home’s dining and front rooms. The change gives the main living area an open, rather than boxy, feeling.

They put a square, counter-height dining table, often called a bistro table, in the eating area. It’s a place for family members and guests to sit and snack on antipasto when dinner’s being prepared a few feet away.

An important change Angelo made was installing a gas line and replacing an electric stove with a new gas range.

“It’s a must for a chef,” he says, explaining that gas heats pans evenly and enables a cook to control temperature better than with electric burners.

Instead of opting for a stainless steel, six-burner commercial range, which are prevalent in many upscale kitchen remodels, the Brunsons chose a black, four-burner, residential model.

“It’s not like I’m pounding out 150 dinners a night, like at the restaurant,” Brunson says.

The couple installed mahogany cabinets, dark shutters and a terracotta tile floor in the kitchen, helping give the space an Old World aura. But for a time during the remodel, before the lower cabinets came in, the family used restaurant-grade stainless steel food prep tables for storage.

Other reminders of Angelo’s professional life are a magnetic strip mounted to a wall that holds knives and a 200-pound butcher block. Also, their pots and pans are either stainless steel or cast iron, not nonstick. Even the Brunsons’ dinnerware – colorfully painted Deruta-style plates – is a nod to their Italian restaurant and heritage.

Off the kitchen is a sunroom where the Brunsons grow herbs used in their cooking. The family has eaten organically for the last 10 years, and Angelo says he’s happy to see more people doing the same today.

“People are finding out what’s in their foods: pesticides, herbicides,” he says. “There’s a lot of genetically-modified food.”

The Brunsons, who are devout Catholics, surrounded their kitchen with religious paintings and symbols. A statue of Mary stands watch near the sink and two crucifixes hang on the walls. Hanging above a piano (Angelo just started taking lessons) near the bistro table are dried palm leaves, a Catholic emblem of the Easter season.

The kitchen renovation took six months. The result is a comfortable, farmhouse-style space that blends three ingredients important to the Brunsons: faith, family and flavor.