francesco

Of course you find it interesting. He knows what he's talking about and you don't. Eh, Stevey, he's a she. No, HE's not. FrancescO I'm sorry if I offended you Francesco. It was Steve that wrote FranciscA. Whoever made the mistake, I wasn't offended. Francesco

Of course you find it interesting. He knows what he's talking about and you don't. Eh, Stevey, he's a she. No, HE's not. FrancescO

So sorry you were misled but that's French and NOT Italian food. One of the problems is that once a restaurant (in Italy) ceases to be 'local' and becomes 'international' and is mentioned a lot on this site by the likes of you and me the food actually changes and adapts for the new, wealthier, clients. It's a very sad and very true fact. Let's put it this way, I wouldn't go to Aimo e Nadia now. We've had this discussion before about haute cuisine in Italy and I am still amazed how a few disappointing dinners once or twice a year can convince people that the Italians can't do it. I'll just point out that I've recently had an overall disappointing meal at Il Sorriso and if that was the only experience of high-end Italian restaurants I had, I might almost agree with you. But then, if you had been with me at Georges Blanc two years ago you'd probably believe the same for french haute cuisine. I'll just point out that the fois gras Steve had at Aimo e Nadia wasn't really a fois gras made according to the usual method. It is made in Italy and it's called Ficatum because the geese are not force-fed with a corn-based feed but are fed (not force-fed) dried figs. This is an old recipe that goes back to Roman and even ancient Greek times. Also, the town of Mortara where the producer, Giocchino Palestro, works, used to have a significant Jewish community that produced fois gras and goose-based charcuterie such as goose salame, goose prosciutto etc., Palestro simply revived that tradition. Francesco

Maybe it's me but what language is this - with all the x's it must be Basque! My guess is a New York Italian dialect??? Portugese?? It's "old Italian." Nothing to do with New York or Portuguese. It is simply an adage in dialect from Veneto which roughly translates as "if whoever invented wine is not in paradise, he's close to it". Nothing to do with old Italian (a most difficult thing to define, BTW).

Robert, I went to Guido on the very last days of the restaurant, we almost met each other! I have to say that I thought the meal was wonderful and I made it a point to try all the "classics" before verifying how the two new enterprises go. After a few visits I am still in awe of the agnolotti and the vitello tonnato. I found the cardoons, the bell pepper, the tagliatelle with truffles and the mousse to be very good but was disappointed by the kid which was delicious and perfectly cooked except for a distinct underseasoning which spoiled it a bit. The chocolate and pear tarte was OK, never liked it too much, perhaps I should have tried a sabayon. Value for money was, with a bottle of Barolo Sandrone Cannubi Boschis 1990, a bottle of Arneis and a Forteto della Luja Loazzolo and lots of truffles on almost every dish, really good (400 euros for 4 people). I really hope at least one of the new restaurants will be as good as the old one because I miss it already and it is one of those very few places where I would never tire to eat the same dishes day after day. I also went to Al Sorriso which provided one fantastic dish of Red Partridge and a very good overall meal (the ficatum with pears, the bettelmatt ravioli, the ossolan gnocchi and the chocolate-hazelnut dessert where also very, very good) but not nearly the same value for money. I know one restaurant has one star and the other three but with drinking a Gattinara instead of the Barolo, we spent 370 euros for two. The Enoteca sounds like a great target for next winter: I'll also have to return to Il Rododendro. Francesco

Mogsob, I have no idea with regard to prices, they might raise them. However, I would have conjectured that other places such as Guido and Gambero Rosso would have even lower prices. The "scary" thing is that Massimiliano Alajmo is even younger that I thought: he's just 28! Is this the absolute record for Michelin 3 stars? (I thought that the record was Jacques Lameloise who got his 3 stars when he was 29). Francesco

Robert, I had one experience at Il Flipot and it was very good: it isn't incredibly creative but it isn't staunchly traditional either, their cuisine is a sophisticated take on the local mountain region tradition which is sometimes surprising (for example he likes to use a special kind of hay called "maggengo" hay in his dishes, personally I have never seen hay used as food anywhere else). At the time I though the restaurant was very undervalued at just one michelin star. However, recently I have heard less-enthusiastic-than-usual reports on the restaurant both from the other guides and from people whose judgement I trust. Still, most people rank it consistently as one of the top 3 in Piedmont As far as Le Calandre is concerned, I have to say I've never been: its a bit far from where I come from (Liguria). According to all reports, the cuisine is much more creative than any of the other three stars and most other restaurants in Italy (the chef, Massimiliano Alajmo is probably one of the youngest 3 stars ever). Michelin seems to like the restaurant more than the other guides and if this is understandable in the Espresso guide case (which is a bastion of tradition), it is more puzzling in the case of Gambero Rosso (which is happy to encourage creativity). In the end, I suppose that the fact that the cuisine is perhaps closest to "French" creative cuisine than any other top restaurant in Italy, explains their success with Michelin: it's probably not a coincidence that they are one of very few restaurants in Italy which is also a member of Relais Gourmand. They have a web site: Le Calandre A sample menu is only available in the Italian version of the site: it does look interesting. All in all I'd definitively give it a try. I find it interesting that while in all other countries I am familiar with (UK and France) Michelin seems to be in broad agreement with the other local guides as to which restaurants are at the top, in Italy there is ample disagreement. Il Pescatore is the only place that gets mentioned in the top tier in all guides (but none of the others put is at the very top) and the other two are not considered better than, say, 20 other restaurants. My personal opinion is that given the standards in France, the lack of 3 stars to Pinchiorri, Vissani and Gambero Rosso is a scandal (for that matter, I find that only 3 restaurants with 3 stars is a scandal as well). Francesco

According to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, the three stars for this year are Sorriso - Soriso (Piedmont) Il Pescatore - Canneto sull' Oglio (Lombardy) Le Calandre - Rubano (Veneto) (new three star restaurant) There are also three new two-star restaurants: Flipot (Torre Pellice - Piedmont), Sadler (Milan), Mulinazzo (Villafrati - Sicily). I am not aware of any demotions from 2 to 1 star but there may be as the newsfeed was fairly vague. Francesco

Steve, you're choosing your data to fit your theory: you have just mentioned two chefs (Alfonso Iaccarino and Heinz Beck) who work in Italy and who have books translated in English available: in Spain I believe only Adria and Balaguer will be/have been able to do the same. So really I don't see any difference. Concerning Marchesi's book, let me remind you that he was big and his book was published in the early 80s: even Alain Chapel's book wasn't translated in English. Actually Marchesi was one of only two non-French speaking chefs (the other being Witzigmann) whose books were published in the same series as Bocuse, Troigros, Verge, Girardet, etc. To this day, how many chefs from Spain, Germany, Belgium, and other European countries outside of France have had their book translated in English? In addition, I very much doubt that apart from the two guys mentioned above, any other Spanish chef cookbook has significant sales abroad that are any different from the Italians. And this holds for any other country in which we have Michelin starred chefs (Belgium, Germany, Switzerland) but the native language is not English. Also note that the English chefs probably sell more books outside England than the French outside France, yet this could not be conceived as a measure of how relevant the two countries' chefs are in haute cuisine, I hope. I should also correct you on another factual point: Iaccarino and Beck are not the only other chefs that have cookbooks around. To the list you should add Nadia Santini (Pescatore), Ezio Santin (Antica Osteria del Ponte), Claudio Sadler (Sadler), Romano Tamani (Ambasciata), Vissani, Marchesi (he's got a new book out), Filippo Chiappini Dattilo (Antica Osteria del Teatro), Moreno Cedroni (Madonnina del Pescatore). These are all in Italian but they do exist. A catalog that includes these books (but the prices are unreasonable) can be found at Italian cookbooks One other thing: the raviolo aperto has no gold leaf on it, what you're referring to is the saffron risotto, that's got the gold leaf. Let me restate my position on this: everyone except for me seems to believe that haute cuisine is French: I have tried to point out that this is not so, and that a few Italian chefs have successfully continued the Italian tradition within haute cuisine. But this kind of work comes against the very obstacle that I was talking about a few days ago. People mistakenly believe that haute cuisine has to be French, and since most of the people who come to Italy don't want to eat "French", they don't go to high-end restaurants and therefore these restaurants are not very well known. We could call it the "Peterpumpikino attitude", but I believe just about anyone on this forum, including yourself has been "guilty" of it to some extent. As an aside, I should emphasize that I do enjoy very much non-haute cuisine restaurants when they are good, I just refuse to subscribe to the rule of thumb that haute cuisine in Italy = bad french , simple trattoria = true and good Italian, especially when the opposite view is supported by people that haven't given high-end Italian restaurants a fair shot. After all, how many people on this forum have been to Beck's or Vissani, or Il Gambero Rosso and even if they've been, how many times? No wonder these chefs are not talked about much, nobody eats there! Again, I don't think it has anything to do with quality. I happen to know these restaurants well and I believe they do compare favorably with most two and three stars in France. I will grant you that possibly with the exception of Massimiliano Alajmo at Le Calandre, Perbellini at Perbellini and Vissani, most Italian high-end restaurants are not terribly creative, but I really don't believe they cannot compete with similarly very traditional haute cuisine restaurants like Blanc, Lameloise, Taillevent, etc. Francesco

Are you suggesting there's some sort of affirmative action program in place for rating Italian restaurants? Steve, Hollywood - I would strong dispute this. Italy has *2* michelin three stars right now: if you compare the ratio of 3 stars to one stars or two stars in Italy versus any other country with a Michelin guide, you'd see it is the lowest by far of any country. If anything, quite the contrary. Steve, would you say that Il Sorriso is worse than even Bocuse? Don't forget that Roelinger is a two-star, so I guess it depends which two stars you are talking about. Marc - Robert has mentioned Miramonti L' Altro where I have never been. Il Gambero Rosso is not a great favorite of mine but I am always in the minority on this. Other very good ones are Caino (in Montemerano, Tuscany), Perbellini (Isola Rizza, Veneto), Flipot (in Torre Pellice, Piedmont), Guido (Piedmont), Ambasciata (Quistello, Lombardy), La Pergola (in Rome). Recently I dined a few days apart at Le Pont de Brent (Switzerland- 3 stars) and Arnolfo (2 stars - Tuscany). Based on that single meal at each restaurant, I can only say that I paid half the price in the latter and got significantly better food. Granted, Le Pont de Brent is Swiss but the cuisine is classical French haute cuisine and the chef is French (having said that, the best meal of my life remains one I had at Girardet). I must also say I strongly disagree about, say, Blanc versus Pinchiorri or Il Pescatore (less so about Aimo and Nadia). Pinchiorri, BTW, to me is Italian enough, which brings me to my last point. It seems a lose-lose situation for Italian chefs. On the one had we have someone like Peterpumpkino who equates italian with rustic, simple food only (pace Artusi, Bergese and many others) and labels French anything that is nicely plated and refined, on the other we have others who wonder how come Italian chefs have not done better in haute cuisine. Well, if everytime they try to refine their cuisine, they're called French and scoffed at, it mustn't be easy to improve. Robert- are you sure about Santin having had training by Verge and Blanc? He seems too "old" for that and his reputation is that of an entirely self-trained chef who got his only exposure through travels (before he became chef when he was 40 years old, he was a good home cook and worked first as a hairdresser and then as a coffee refiner) and cookbooks. I have his book at home, I'll check this evening. Francesco

Steve, believe there are misconceptions based on the desire to make too much grand theory and forgetting that in reality the devil is often in the details. Haute Cuisine was not, it could be argued, only a French thing. Much of that repertoire was available to rich aristocrats and bourgeois in different parts of Europe. Gualtiero Marchesi has always been keen to distinguish between French cuisine and Haute Cuisine (the former being defined as french regional cooking) claiming that haute cuisine was never a wholly French affair (although the French contributions were many) and defending his right to develop a haute cuisine based on Italian sensibilities that could not be characterized as French. If you read Patricia Wells' notes on his restaurant, it is briefly dismissed as a poor imitation of French cuisine, whereas he will vehemently dismiss the notion that his cuisine is French in any way shape of form (which doesn't say anything about the inherent quality of his food which has been in decline for a decade now: the man has intellectual pretensions that make him bored of cooking but he doesn't have the talent to do anything better so he sticks to it). Now, if you read Nino Bergese's book "Mangiare da Re", published in the 60s, you'll understand what Marchesi means. Many of the dishes in that book would not have been out of place in a Point or a Dumaine recipe book and no wonder: Bergese was at some point the chef of the Italian royal family and had gotten his training in haute cuisine, *not* French cuisine. So if you accept the notion that there is an International/European haute cuisine (wasn't Bouley trying to make the same point with Danube?) from where it all started and that this cuisine had a common "language", the right question to ask is why this cuisine was later identified as French and why all the main innovators where french, not whether italian cuisine is inferior/superior/ from the french. Because then you are compring apples with oranges and it is not just a question of semantics. The question then becomes why the italians chefs haven't picked up on this as much as the french. If the answer is not, as I firmly believe, in an inherent inferiority of Italian "cuisine" because of what I've said above, then it must be in the demand for haute cuisine in Italy and that has never been high (just as it is in Spain or any other European country). Now if you exclude France and the buzz created by Ferran Adria in catalonia, can you really claim that there is a country that clearly dominates Italy even in haute Cuisine? I have had a few meals in French, Swiss, British and Italian haute cuisine restaurants and frankly, I believe the answer to be no. If to be relevant a cuisine has to produce innovators such as Bras, Veyrat, Gagnaire, Passard, or in his way, Ducasse, then Italy can offer little in comparison but so can Germany, the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and the Pays Basque. As a matter of fact, outside of France such buzz only exists with Adria and his "followers". Just to stick to the UK, I still don't understand what's so especially innovantive in MPW's, Pierre Koffman's, Roux family's, Raymond Blanc's or Gordon Ramsey's cuisine. For each of these there are much less publicized chefs who do the same/better quality job in Italy: we just don't have the world-superstars. Even in France, if you look at other Michelin 3 stars such as Blanc, Auberge de L' Ill, Lucas Carton, Westermann, etc. then I can assure you there are better restaurants than these in Italy. So all we need is a home grown version of Adria and we'd suddenly go from being attached to traditions and boring to being cutting edge and innovative? I don't think so. Tradition yes is a weight but that's simply because most Italians still identify cuisine as home cooking only, the french can distinguish haute cuisine from home cooking and appreciate both and that allows more restaurants specialized in haute cuisine and more talent to develop. If italy had the same demand, you'd see a simiation much more similar to the French and with a distinctively italian take on things (BTW, I believe the "starchy course contraint", to the extent that it applies, to be a positive, not a negative). And as I've said in my previous post, the fact that many foreigners that feel that the only way to eat well in italy is to *avoid* haute cuisine restaurants because "who wants to eat French food in Italy?" Aren't helping. The laughable fact that Patricia Wells thinks that Da Fiore is the best restaurant in Italy is a said confirmation of this. Francesco

Well, being Italian, I couldn't really resist adding my 2 cents worth to this discussion. I think I would agree with the notion of culinary irrelevance (or minor importance) if the metric used to measure this was the attractiveness of top restaurants. There are a few reasons for this: Economics has something to do with it for sure: the south is much poorer than the north and just a brief perusal of italy's map on the red michelin guide will tell you immediately that the concentration of stars in the south is nowhere near that in the north. But even in the north, Italy only became an industrialized and fully developed nation in the 60s and culinary habits had been quite settled by then. Just as a small example, a restaurant in Leivi, called Ca' Peo, which I know quite well, gives a refined take on regional specialties with very few more standard haute cuisine dishes. It has a Michelin star and is always very good, sometimes mindblowingly good and yet the patronage is mostly foreign or from Milan: if you ask local well educated people whether they'd like to go to the restaurant, most of the times the answer you get is "but isn't it a french type restaurant which does nouvelle cuisine?". This only because the restaurant has a slightly more sophisticated ambiance than usual and the food is presented in a slightly more sophisticated matter and they miss what I believe is the best take on Ligurian cuisine there is. This isn't just an Italian feeling and some foreigners fall into this sort of frame of mind as well: when Peterpumkino says that anything which is not of a trattoria-type is not Italian, he says something that indeed many Italians agree with, although I believe it to be wrong. When high end restaurants are blamed by locals and sometimes by visitors that they are not enough trattoria-like, how can you expect a large number of them to flourish? The Passards, Gagnaires, Veyrats, Bras can only be produced in a context where high end cuisine is patronized by the locals as well as the tourists because this generates the large number of high end restaurants necessary to build a school, to make people want to become a creative chef. Unless, of course, you get a very special case like Ferran Adria who is able singlehandedly to inspire a new generation of chefs in his native land. Persoannyl I wish this wasn't true because I really do eblieve the cuisine to have the same potential as French cuisine, but I feel sometimes both Italians and non-Italians see it as "ethnic". Anyone familiar with the history of high gastronomic quality restaurants in Italy knows that until the 60s only 2 or 3 pioneers existed such as Cantarelli in Samboseto, and Bergese at "La Santa" in Genoa. These few restaurants where the only ones who aspired to provide a similar level of cuisine than that found in very good restaurants in France. By the way, food apart, they remained quite close to the trattoria "type" and service or ambiance had nothing to do with the restaurants across the alps. These restaurants then spawned a "second" generation: for example Ezio Santin (of the Antica Osteria) and the Santinis (of Il Pescatore) decided to become restaurateurs after meals at Cantarelli, Lidia Alciati (of Guido) and Valentino Mercattillii (of San Domenico), learned a lot from Nino Bergese. I could go on, but the point is that Italian "haute cuisine" (for lack of a better word) has developed from the enthusiasm of a few amateurs who decided to get into the business after experiencing the great restaurants of France, there never was a native movement. Let me stress this: there was no demand for these restaurants and as a few came about due to the passions of some, the demand has never really increased because none of these passionate amateurs had the ability to go beyond extremely well crafted versions of traditional regional cuisine. If you think about it, when you go into a top class French restaurant you mostly get dishes that have always been rooted in haute cuine: in Italy you get refined versions of peasant dishes. I don't think it is a coincidence that even today almost all the top Italian chefs are self taught (Vissani, Marchesi and Pierangelini being the exceptions) and that the "creativity" level within high-end Italian restaurants is limited. A restaurant like Il Pescatore is great at what it does but I don't believe Nadia Santini could go very far from a refined take on Mantuan cuisine and still be able to do it at her current levels. When comparing Italy to Spain, however, a few things have to be kept in mind: the first is that Spanish haute cuisine is really catalan and basque, if you look at the other regions there is much less than in Italy. The second thing to remember is that the current, mostly catalan phenomenom is really due to a single individual. Without Ferran Adria, I really doubt that the culinary fervor in Catalonia would be what it is. So while I accept the distinction between France and Italy to be a fundamental one, I believe what is going on in Spain to be more of a happy accident than anything else. A couple more things: I thing that "prejudice" (in the literal sense) has not helped those italian chefs who indeed are creative and don't get enough international recognition. For example, for me Vissani is at the very top and could hold his own with any chef in the globe. To Steve P. I would say that the presence of pasta as an unavoidable dish is definitively not something that has to be part of Italian cuisine and could be avoided easily: a few decades ago pasta (fresh or otherwise) was not a fundamental ingredient at all in Italian cuisine. I suspect it being everywhere is due to demand, not the cuisine itself. Francesco

Hi, following upon a request by Bux, I post some info on Miguel Sanchez Romera's restaurant, L' Esguard, in Saint Andreu de Llavaneres, near Barcelona. He's well publicized in Italy (he was even invited to demontrate at the last Salone del Gusto organized by Slow Food in Turin) but not well known in other part of Europe or the US. He's also famous because he is a neurologist and works 3 days a week in a hospital and cooks at the restaurant the rest of the week. Here's a link to a recent very positive review in Spanish L' Esguard Anyone know more about him? Francesco

Cabrales, the only other dish that I can recall now that puts together so many parts of an animal is by Pierangelini himself. He used to do another "voyage" around the gallina livornese (the hen of a breed of chieckens called after the seaport in Tuscany) but he decided to stop because he said that he couldn't get the quality hens he needed. I haven't tasted this so I couldn't comment on the results. On top of my head I can't think of anything else, I am sure there is more especially in traditional cooking. Certainly nothing like Pierangelini's voyages where so many parts of the animal are presented together (I know that Thomas Keller does this with lamb but I am sure you were aware of that). Finally, thanks for the welcome. I have been lurking for months but I decided just now to take the plunge as I've noticed the small number of posts/issues dedicated to Italy and decided to do something about it. Francesco

For me the best restaurant in the Cinque Terre is called "Cappun Magru - a Casa di Marin." It is literally in a house where the chef and his wife live and where he was born. The cuisine is based on seafood with many touches that show an understanding and interest in the traditions of the land. It's located in Riomaggiore (the precise location is Groppo) but quite out of town (it is reachable by car from La Spezia). The tel. is 0187920563 and a reservation is required (ask them if they will serve their cappun magru, the most elaborate seafood salad in traditional italian cooking). Francesco

Steven, it seems to me that some Italians know their US vacation destinations better than most Americans! The Italian food magazine Gambero Rosso (the original Italian version, not the bad version in English that you see in the US) has a feature this month on the stretch of coast that goes from Pensacola to western Louisiana, with reports on places to eat, to stay, etc. including places in Biloxi. I forgot to bring the magazine to the office with me but if you're interested I can dig it up and report the places they recommend. Anyway, great job on these reports, I can only ad my envy to that of everyone else Francesco

Cabrales- Fulvio Pierangelini is the chef-owner of the restaurant "Gambero Rosso" in San Vincenzo (Tuscany, near Bolgheri, where Sassicaia, Ornellaia and many other famous super-tuscans are produced). The restaurant has two michelin stars and given the level of the decor it is difficult to imagine it ever getting three. However, just about everyone (except for me) believes that the food is amongst the very best in italy. The Gambero Rosso guide (no relation with Pierangelini) rates him consistently as the best in Italy while the Expresso guide (affiliated with Gault Millau) puts him in the top five every year. His signature dish, Chickpea puree with gamberetti (little scampi) and crude olive oil is probably the most imitated dish in high-endish italian restaurants. I visited only once and while I found the service better than expected (Pierangelini has a reputation for being a shy man with a bit of a rough attitude), the food I found underwhelming. One interesting dish he serves, however, is the "voyage around a cinta sense pig" where 8-9 differnt little plates are brough to the table with different cuts exploited. The bread with ciccioli (essentially, the fat just under the skin) was the highlight. Wine spectator did a small feature on him: Wine Spectator - Gambero Rosso BTW, I found the list of candidates to this competition from Italy to be surprisingly realistic, definitively more than the French one. Francesco