Boise Journal Magazine December/January 2008 issue Good Eats Café Vicino by Doug Copsey    If there is any truth at all to the theory put forth in the eclectic 1992 film, "Like Water For Chocolate" -that the emotional state of the chef affects the taste of the food being prepared- then perhaps the best description of Café Vicino's cuisine would be happy food. Talking with Richard Langston and Steve Rhodes, you can't help but feel like a day in the kitchen watching these two iconic Boise chefs work would be almost as pleasurable as enjoying their signature tomato basil soup, or the mouth-watering fresh Halibut in a cherry tomato-caper sauce. Fifteen years of sharing ideas and concocting menus for some of the finest eateries in Boise no doubt has something to do with that. "Steve was one of the first people I met when we moved up from California," says Langston. "I got a job at Amore and Steve was the lunch chef there." When Rhodes, who first started working in kitchens at the Gamekeeper when he was a junior in high school, decided to get out of the restaurant business for a while, Langston also left to open Richard's in Hyde Park. Who can forget those incredible cinnamon rolls? The flood of customers soon moved Richard's across the street, and Rhodes offered to help out in the kitchen. "Just for fun," he says with a wry grin. "I couldn't stay away for long, it's my true passion." When Rhodes got the itch to move again, Langston again followed suit. "There's a pattern here," says Langston with a laugh. "When I sold my part of Richard's I didn't want to own a restaurant for a while, but the longer I was away from it the more I missed it." After a three-year stint as Micron's corporate chef, Langston had lost touch with Rhodes when his old friend called with an invitation to his wedding. "We started talking and we were both looking for our own thing," says Rhodes, "so we started looking together." Six months of searching led them to the old Flip Side Café space, and suddenly everything seemed to fall into place. "The location was a lot of it," says Langston, "because so much of our success in Hyde Park was based on being in a neighborhood. We knew it would be important to our success to draw on that same crowd." Evidenced by the easy-going way these two culinary artists interact, instinctively knowing what the other is trying to say, even before he says it, often finishing each other's sentences, joking and laughing-a lot of laughing-it's apparent that working together again was like slipping into a comfortable old pair of slippers. Rhodes typically handles lunches and orders most of the foodstuffs, while Langston does dinners and deals with the front-of-the-house stuff like staff and the wine list. The tradition of using local fare whenever possible, begun at Richard's Across the Street, continues at Vicino, where they use as many local vegetables as they can find, Idaho-raised lamb, and northwest-raised beef. "We've had a lot of fun working with local vendors and getting to know them instead of just buying from mass producers" Langston says. "Besides, the food's just better. It doesn't have to travel as far." Word of the new restaurant preceded the opening on March 19, 2007 (Rhodes' birthday), and for the first several weeks they were booked solid. Still, everything came off with no more than a few minor hitches. "Credit to our staff," Langston insists. "We've been really lucky. Several people who worked with us before came and found us and said if we were opening a restaurant they wanted to work for us. That's a real compliment and we're very appreciative of that." There have been a few changes, like adding carpet to improve the acoustics, and this spring the landlord is planning some streetscape improvements along Fort Street, but bottom line, after a meal at Café Vicino, you're bound to leave happier than when you came in.