Rob@Nice

Dear Alberto and Pia: In my opinion the way that Italian restaurants can reach excellence without losing their identity is to be intensely local. I would say RADICALLY local. They need to buy the very best, freshest ingredients from the people who grow and produce them. They should strive to make a cuisine that can;t be duplicated anywhere. I am just now thinking of those little violet artichokes in Italy --the ones that look like they long fingernails. They are not as good anywhere else in the world. Do you know how many different kinds of basil there are? Aklthough I am American and live in France, all my grandparents came from Italy and I have been travelling there all my life. Italy is a collection of regions as you know and in each of these regions, the chefs need to get close to land and traditions and make some discoveries and then reinvent. I don't think Italian chefs should be trying to create Italian nouvelle cuisine but should be striving to make the best Piemontese, Sicilian, Tuscan, Sardininan, Neopolitan, etc. Hey the Romans made wines that aged for hundreds of years in clay amphors. You can't tell me that everything has been exhausted, and that Italian restaurants always have to feature the same six pasta dishes. Personally, I think restos in Paris--as in most big cities-- are over-priced and mediocre. There's a reason why the best restos are outside the cities and closer to the land. The problem with the place I described in Radda was not that it was innovative--it was thiat it was trying to please some marketing person's vision. That is why the whole darn region of Chianti Clasico can be so sterile. It's Napa Valley. Too often when Italians think of creating the restaurant they think about the coll modern lighting and the girl they are going to have out front greeting their "VIP" customers. Am I making this up? By the way, the excellent resto in the Maremma is Bambolo )a hotel restaurant in Donoratico. Ciao, Robert

Yes, I live in Le Rouret. Which is actually in the Alpes-Maritimes. In the hills about 30 mintues from Cannes and ditto from Nice. La Table de Mon Moulin is my neighbor. We went in Feb. for my wife's birthday. It is a very good Table D'hotes with a great Burgundy wine list. Ity's only open Dinner Monday-Friday. And the menu is set --based on what Silva desices to concoct for the evening. I like the place and prefer familial ambiance to fancy places like Le Moulin de Mougins and La Bastide St. Antoine and etc. etc. The funny thing is that Le Rouret is a tiny rural village with not a lot going on. And yet it has two of the best restos in the area. In the village center is Clos St. Pierre, which this year was awared a michelin star.

Hi new member here. I eat in Italy a lot. I live about 1 hour from the italian border in France and visit Italy for markets travel,etc. whenever I can. Seems to me that Italians are naturally suspcious of anything fussed over. In Italy "sophisticated" is often used in the negative. Though my Italian friends take pride in seeing the success of Super Tuscan wines, etc. None of them drink them, and deep down they realize these are marketing cons. Why is it that only Italians can make great espresso? And the French, for example, makel espresso almost as bad as Starbucks with the same coffee and machines? Because the Italians do it effortlessly. The whoile process takes about 10 seconds. We have an old family friend from near Spoleto who is one of the best Italian cooks I know. She claims that tomato sauce should never cook more than 10 minutes. What makes Italian cuisine great is local, fresh ingredients simply prepared. The only "foreign" influences needed are perhaps a little parma ham, parmesan cheese or pecorino from Sardinia. Last year I went to Radda in Chianti with an Italian friend. We ate a restaurant with soft music, subdued lighting, small artistic portions, and attractive female waitstaff who spoke in hushed tones. IT WAS AWFUL. Sorry, but it was not Italy. There is a place you can Ital--fusion-fpseudo cuisine. It's called California. There's Dallas too. This year we had a fantastic lunch in the Maremma: pasta with sea urchins, a whole grilled bronzino washed down with local Vermentino. What more could you want? Where we live in the south of France, many people, when they want this kind of mediterranean cooking by the sea, go to Liguria. They leave the overpriced overdone restos with the star chefs here to the tourists.