I just completed an 8 night visit to Emilia Romagnia and Florence, with my major goal to eat myself silly. As you'll notice in my notes, we spent time going to local, traditional trattorias and for a nice balance, more innovative, modern style restaurants. I took many suggestions from many members of the eGullet community, so thank you all very much and I hope you find some of my eating highlights handy. Sorry for the length, but such an inspiring food focused vacation deserves such reflection, I think. I've left out my notes about our time in Florence, as this post has become rather long. I will add Florence thoughts to the site separately. Faenza Restaurant La Baita (reco from Slow Food) A small, brilliant little cheese and cured pork store with a fantastic dining room in the back. The dining room walls are filled with wine bottles and price tags. You can just pick your own for the meal or let a server do it for you, as we did. A nice range - local selections from Emilia region all the way to the heavy hitters from Tuscany and Piedmont. A casual, local place great for an easy going lunch. Food highlights include an unbelievable beef risotto. The beef broth was clear and light, but with massive flavor. Arborio was al dente, and the dish was runny and slightly soupy...certainly to show off the brilliant broth. Garnished with slices of grilled, charred beef with great rosemary flavor. A grilled steak was nice, as was the tagliatelle bolognese style. Cheese and salumi a must for antipasti. Brisighella A region highly praised for it's olive oil (and it's beautiful mountainous, rolling hill terrain), it was shocking how little focus the oil received in the meals we had. No worries, you can still buy local olio and take it home as we did. We did that at Terre Brisighella, one of the local producers retail shops in the town center. We tried to get a tour of the production facilities, but as it was Thursday, they were closed ( they were also closed Friday, Sunday and Monday- The rest of the town had that type of schedule as well. Must be nice.) We stayed at an agriturismo farm called Torre Pratesi 5 or so miles on top of a big mountain. Beautiful. We had a dinner in their dining room with about 8 other guests. The cooks were the women Italian owners. It was a very nice meal, but nothing was remarkable. More notable was the meal we had at Gigiole in the center of the village. Restaurant Gigiole (reco'd everywhere) Gigiole is a well known restaurant, recommended by most food focused writings about the area. Most notable was the menu variety. You could order ala carte, or you could try one of the three, yes three, four course tasting menus. The menus differed based on the traditional and the house specialties. They let us get one of each, so we sampled eight unique courses. Nice. Highlights were the anitpasti and the pasta. Secondi were slightly uninteresting, though executed perfectly. A small, cured pork item that seemed more lardo that anything else was beautifully smoky and featured the olio of the region, with an interesting cured piece of garlic. Pasta fagiole was inspiring - fresh scraps of pasta and a nice broth. The pastas were really nice. Tagliatelle in a traditional bechamel like sauce was the star. The bechamel had the traditional aspects you'd expect, but it was loose and runny, infused with a nice garlic and herb flavor. Both meals in Brisighella were buried by what follows. Bologna Diana (reco'd from a great Travel + Leisure article) We fell in love with a place called Diana, right on Via Interdepenzia. We had two lunches there. I was blown away by the traditional dishes that were executed perfectly. Tortellini in brodo was amazing - simple yet explosive in the mouth. The brodo was almost perfectly clear, yet pungent with chicken flavor. The tortellini was fresh and soft, yet remained al dente. The pork filling was impactful. Spooning in the freshly grated reggiano and watching it disppear into the brodo made me forget about my expanding stomach area. This rendition set the standard tortellini in brodo of the trip. Also brilliant was the mortadella mousse on crostini. Porky yet light, the flavor of the mortedella was in a dip like fashion, perfect for spreading on bread. I don't recall speaking until it was gone. I quickly made a pledge to myself to remake it over and over again when I got home. Besides the obvious being amazing (proscutto, tagliatelle bolognese), we had a raw fresh porcini salad that was stunning. The entire plate was filling with shards of reggiano, the shaved porcini, shaved black truffle, olio and lemon juice. It was a little light on the lemon acidity and the truffles seemed either on the elderly side or unflavorful summer truffles, but the porcini was the star. Why can't I can't fresh porcini's like these? A dumb question. It's obvious why I can't get them in this quality. Don't rub it in. Bitone (reco'd from eGullet posts) Yes, it was as good as the others on the site have said. It has a Michelin star, but I didn't lose any of the authentic or inspired cooking that I was looking for on the trip. The chef, who doesn't do much cooking for dinner, was very nice and constantly available for chatting. It was great to be able to ask him about aspects of dishes that we had just eaten. Funny enough, while eating my secondi (grilled sausage course), he noticed my reluctant effort due to fullness and said something to the effect of "please, we eat too much here" and took it away! Chef, my still in tact (debatable)single chin thanks you. The tortellini in egg drop was shocking to me. The sauce was bright yellow, had a mellow eggy taste, but acted as a rich sauce to roll the porky tortellini around in. Awesome. One of the best pasta dishes of the trip. The other highlight (I'm starting to condense, as I fear I'm wrambling) was the lasanga bolognese. Compared to a lasagna we had at Diana (above), the bechamel was runny and loose vs. gloppy and thick, and a touch of tomato sauce that was missing at Diana was a nice touch. The piece was broiled at the finish, leaving the meat and bechamel topping slightly browned. Molto bene. Had a 95 Barolo for $50 and an unbelievable emilian dessert wine that I need to find. Fantastic meal. Fantasticly longing for a workout. Modena There are two meals that I need to take you through. They were both inspiring, and most interestingly, had nothing in common other than the pure beauty of ingredients of the area. This, to me, is the perfect example of why we went to Emilia. The traditional dishes based on the beauty of the ingredients, as well as the modern interpretation of the classics with the same focus on the same ingredients, left me suspended in the past but inspired by innovation at the same time. Osteria La Francescana (reco'd Travel +Leisure and everywhere else) I've eaten almost everywhere in NYC, my current home, and I can tell you that this meal ends up at the top of the list. The chef fancies himself as an El Bulli-like progressive innovator. On the other hand, he is still remarkably true to the region. He is basically taking the traditional and making it new, which I admire (if it's great, of course). So, here goes. We had the tasting menu, of which they do not tell you what is on it or how many courses it will be...I recall the waiter saying "7-10. Something of everything....we have truffles." Ok, sold. I thought this was rather confident, so bring it on, I thought. That they did. A mortadella foam, it was called, started. You'll recall in my notes about Diana that this was traditional. I did detect a lightness vs. Diana's, and definitely noted the comparable porky flavor. It was fantastic, though to me, not deserving of a foam description. Diana's was just as good, minus the foam trend. Next, leeks and black truffles in a timbal shape. Melted leeks, not too creamy, still had integrity vs. the buttery/creaminess, retaining their nice sweetness. Fresh and extremely flavorful black truffles in a black truffle and olio drizzle. Wow. Third, Parm Reg 4 ways, all differently aged. A whopper. One of the best dishes I’ve ever had. A parm mousse/foam that was the youngest. Next, a dense pudding, in what appeared to have been steamed or something, aged a bit longer. A parm cracker, aged the longest. All three were surrounded in a rich parm sauce that was the youngest. Smart, thoughtful, focused. Perfect. Fourth, one tortelloni. Sage foam. Parm foam. Butter. Ricotta and sage stuffing. Sage foam melts slowly onto warm pasta and creates a sauce. Zucchini soup in a shot glass. Very nice. Vivid freshness of zucca, slightly separated at the bottom from the brodo, on top was a parm foam and drizzle of what I suspect was a 25 year old balsamic. Chicken with black truffle under the skin. Shocking. Moist, very local, wild chicken taste. In a very clear chicken broth. Herb oil was very nice in it and noticeable, not just a garnish. Apple water with basil foam. Odd. challenging, but good. Nice palate cleanser. A new version of tiramisu, very nice. Nice local dessert wine. I'm a changed man. And officially a chubby one, I might add. Villa Gaidello (reco'd Travel +Leisure article and eGullet posts) My quest for chubbiness continues with a three hour traditional family style Sunday lunch. Gaidello is an agriturismo in CastelFranco Emilia that allows tourists to stay in little apartments on the property. It is owned by an Italian woman named Paolo Bini, who slightly reminds me of my grandmother. When we arrived, we had espressi together in her garden and chatted, even though she doesn't speak English. It was fun. She cared about us, it seemed, proven by the fact that she got mad at us when we slept in and bagged breakfast and showed up at 1 for lunch. "Breakfast importante", she said. All of the meals are cooked by a few local Italian women. We were basically the only non-Italians on her beautiful porch-like dining room. There were four families there...all families in full. Children, grandmothers, parents, friends. It's the Sunday I always knew the Italians were having while I was cooking my Sunday meals in New York. Three hours and six traditional Sunday courses started with a salumi plate (mortadella, prosciutto, sopressata?) with cippolini onions and artichokes in balsamico. All this came with beautiful fried little bread-like puffs. They were remarkable. Not greasy and still soft and fluffy. Following was a tortellini in brodo. Very much like Diana's. The pork filling was a little less porky and lighter, possibly with mortadella vs. ground pork. The brodo was clear and remarkably chicken flavored. Fresh tortellini soft yet dente. So satisfying and homey. I need this every Sunday. Next, fresh tagliatelle pasta with fresh tomatoes, basil and parm regg. Roast chicken and potatoes followed, then a custard like fried pillow with fried zuccini to top it. Dessert? Not really, but it was sweet and creamy at the same time. The batter on the zucca reminded me of a funnel cake taste. Dessert was a chocolate cake and nocino, a homemade walnut flavored liquor. After that, the families went out to the garden and played with the kids. We went back to sleep to rest up for a night exploring Modena a few hours later. Additionally, we went on a tour of balsamic producer Malpighi in Modena, as suggested on other eGullet posts. Fantastic and highly recommended.
