Talking chicken

By L. PIERCE CARSON, Register Staff Writer

Thomas Odermatt can talk turkey about chicken.

The Switzerland native knows a whole lot about raising the domesticated fowl. He’ll assure you that there are more chickens in the world than any other bird.

Odermatt also knows that humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food, with both their meat and their eggs consumed. And it’s here that his expertise lies.

For Odermatt is in the food business. His main product is roasted chicken. He’s a rotisseur, founder of a thriving Bay Area business, Roli Roti, and proprietor of Rotisario, the rotisserie chicken outlet in the Oxbow Public Market.

While Odermatt eats, sleeps and breathes chicken these days, it wasn’t always so.

He grew up in Hombrechtikon, just outside one of Switzerland’s grand cities, Zurich, one of nine children sired by Otto Odermatt, a Swiss master butcher. His father owned a butcher shop/charcuterie where a few of his uncles and four brothers were also employed.

Business was brisk at the family butcher shop, says Thomas, until the early ’80s when tastes began to shift, with customers requesting more “white meat” than “red meat.” Also, with the influx of Italian families, fresh ocean-caught fish were more frequently on the menu, he says.

“My father changed the business model to incorporate more and more chicken,” the Napa businessman recalls. “And he used the rotisserie more and more.”

The business got another shot in the arm, he pointed out, following a vacation his parents took to the south of France. “They liked what they tasted, what they ate, while they were in France and came home with ideas for a new spice mixture for the chicken.”

There was but one spice supplier in the area, which resulted in quite similar recipes at all rotisseries and chicken outlets in the area, Odermatt noted. “Rather than continue with the same old thing, which everyone was using, they came up with a new spice mixture (for coating the chickens),” Odermatt says, noting it was a mixture of Provençal-style herbs. “From that point on, we had a line out the door on weekends.”

The senior Odermatt retired from the business in 1986 to spend more time with his grandchildren — the count is now 19. One of Thomas’ brothers took over, while another established a rabbit farm in Hungary. A third runs a construction company not far from home and a fourth is a pilot for Swiss Air.

For a time, Thomas worked on the organic farm his brother started in Hungary. He decided that he wanted a college degree in business management, so he enrolled at UC Berkeley, arriving just prior to the infamous Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the United States.

“As part of my college studies I had to write a business plan,” Thomas recounts. “I decided to write it on a model using my brother’s rotisserie truck in Hungary — he raised chickens along with the rabbits.”

Thomas came up with a firm he called Roli Roti, short for “rolling rotisserie.” He liked the idea so much that after college he put the plan in motion, launching Roli Roti in the Bay Area. Today, Roli Roti services more than two dozen farmers markets, selling just roasted chicken and roasted potatoes.

“The farmers markets are relatively seasonal,” he advised. “I wanted to settle down and do something a little more permanent. So I set up a modified version of Roli Roti here in Napa, where I sell roasted chicken, sandwiches (porchetta, tri-tip and meatloaf are staples) and do some catering.”

Sandwiches are offered from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with freshly roasted chicken available at $12 each between 3 and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. And the roasted potatoes that cook along with the rotisseried chicken taste as good as they look.

Rotisario also welcomes hungry diners who don’t want take-out, but would rather pull up a chair and dine either indoors or on the outdoor terrace at Oxbow Public Market.

To reserve a chicken for pickup on the way home from work, call Rotisario at 226-7700.

Thomas’s tips

If you purchase one of the flavorful Fulton Valley free range chickens (raised on a farm north of Santa Rosa) and take it home, Thomas has some advice for reheating it.

Heat your oven to 250 degrees and place the roasted chicken in it for 15 to 25 minutes. “You just want to heat it up, not dry it out,” Thomas notes. “Then just before you serve it, squeeze a little lime over it to bring out all the flavor.”

Thomas feels a good investment for the home cook is a pair of poultry shears. They do a nice job of cutting a roasted chicken into four equal servings. Cut the chicken down the center of the breast into two halves. Then place the shears just under the wing, being careful not to cut into the “oyster,” and you’ll wind up with another pair of equally sized portions. Whoever gets the thigh should get the tasty oyster, Thomas adds.

Make a tasty chicken salad for four with just half of a leftover breast, he adds. Don’t cube the chicken, shred it by hand and you’ll have a lot more volume. Separate the fillet from the rest of the breast meat and then shred the pieces by hand.

Thomas recommends shaving some ginger root, dicing some scallions and pressing a few cloves of garlic, and adding this to the shredded chicken for the salad.

“Make a lemon soy vinaigrette for the fresh greens you place the chicken salad on. Use a ratio of one tablespoon of lemon juice to two tablespoons of medium salty soy sauce, and toss in a little zest, too. It’s a refreshing vinaigrette that will work well with your chicken salad.”

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