After all the board banter about the relevancy of Italian cuisine, I was eager to depart for a few days of wining and dining in Italy. No matter how hard you try, it’s hard to argue about these things in the abstract. Because while over the last 20 years I have done my fair share of dining there, I hadn’t been there since 2000. And more importantly, I have not eaten there since the inception of the board and I was eager to experience the cuisine given the way it has affected the way I see a meal. We arrived in Torino at about 11:00am and picked up a rental car. Soon enough we were sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the Torino Tangeziale. All thoughts of a leisurely drive to our lunch destination were gone. Originally we had intended to lunch at Davide Scabine’s restaurant in order to try “gas mask dining,” but the exact name of the restaurant and the address couldn’t be secured in time. So off we were headed to Piemonte for some home cooking. Our first two choices for lunch, Tratorria della Posta in Monforte and I Bologna were closed that day (in spite of my Faith Heller Willinger guide claiming they were both open) so I had to do a little last minute research on where to eat. Prior to boarding the flight, after some minor calculations, I called Tratorria della Unione in Treiso and secured us a table. For me, choosing that restaurant was like swimming into the mouth of the whale as it is one of the Slow Food organizations most famous members. In fact, a number of years ago, some food writer anointed it one of the top ten restaurants in Italy and there was a stretch where it was impossible to get a tablel. We pulled into the town of Treiso at about 1:15. It’s a picturesque Italian village with a nice sunny piazza that is slightly too big for a village that size. An also seemingly large for a village that size elementary school sits smack in the middle of the piazza. The Unione is just at the foot of the piazza and is on the left side and slightly downhill from it when approaching from the direction of Alba. There is a small sign announcing the restaurant (I’m sure they would have a slow sign if they could figure out how to do that) and once inside there are six tables in a smallish room. Maybe the place seats 30 diners. On one side sits some built in shelves with copies of various Italian food and wine guides including a complete collection of the Osterria del Italy published by the Slow Food Organization, a book I had never seen before and one which I eagerly grabbed and flipped through the pages of. The Unione only serves a “carta del giorno.” At first I was troubled because I don’t eat pasta (allergies) and the second course was taillerin (egg tagliatelle.) And despite my being able to communicate this to the non-English speaking and seemingly non-simpatico waitress, who didn’t seem to be offering to have them cook me something else, it was too late to go elsewhere so I figured the worst would be that I would grab a nosh in town later. Of course this proved to be unnecessary as they immediately proceed to shower us with a host of antipasti that weren’t on the menu. They started us with some crostini of liver (unidentified and sort of sweetish) that was followed by a plate of thinly sliced salami and prosciutto. Good quality salami, really fragrant and not very dry. And the ham was from a part of the proscuitto I had never seen before. It was almost all fat with a very thin ribbon of meat in the center. The fat was soft and silky, like the texture of the best quality smoked salmon. It just melted in your mouth and then you were left with the ribbon of meat that also melted in your mouth but had more texture to it. Then (and I possibly could have the order wrong,) they served us Vittello Tonnato. This was just okay as the meat was overcooked and the tuna sauce didn’t taste much of tuna. But it was the next dish that launched us into space as they served a Flan of Cardoons with Anchovy. For those who don’t know, cardoons are an artichoke type of vegetable except long and thin. These were chopped into a coarse puree and formed into a loaf with the entire top of the loaf covered with anchovies. Each of us was served what would be a thick terrine like slice with an additional anchovy on the side. It was so good. I’m not sure what they mix into the cardoons but when they bake the terrine, the oil from the anchovies seeps into the terrine and when they serve you a slice, it is drenched (not too much) with the oil the anchovy is packed in. A stunning dish and a must eat for all you anchovy lovers out there. Pasta was up next. My two companions were served taillerin with a ragu of veal and they set a plate of cheeses down in front of me. And the finale was what I understand is the house specialty, rabbit braised in barbaresco wine. It was slightly overcooked, but it was tasty and the schmutz in the plate was the best part. Whatever they stew the rabbit in, the bits of the rabbit that fall off into the gravy, cooked down, is the best part. In fact, a nice bowl of polenta topped with spoonfuls of that rabbit schmutz would be terrific. More cheese for dessert, and we drank a really good bottle of 1997 Giacomo Bologna Barbera Bricco d’Uccelone. The grand total for this lunch for three people with the wine was 118 euros. Welcome to Italy. We didn’t get to our hotel in Alba until nearly four o’clock. After we checked in, two of us took a spazir though the town. If you have never been to Alba, it is truly one of the world’s great food cities. It is also a pretty affluent place for a town of that size. One only has to take a half a dozen steps inside the old city proper to realize that they are not in some two-bit provincial place. Sure provinciality exists, but it has been washed over with the wealth the region has accumulated from the food and wine industry, not to mention ordinary industry. I find it to be much less provincial then say Burgundy where the business is mainly wine and not much else. On the two main shopping streets, which form an L-shape and are probably not more then seven or eight blocks long between them, there must be at least 25 stores that are dedicated to food and wine in some fashion. And we are not talking about cheap food and wine. Top quality ingredients and preparations wherever you look. And there also must be at least a half dozen cafes where one can take some pastries or gelato with their coffee and hot chocolate. But I was on a mission. I needed to bring back some truffles to a dinner I had been invited to on Sunday. So we made a beeline for the truffle market. Unfortunately it had already closed that day. But a sign was up saying the next market was going to be held that Friday at 8:00 in the morning. After a friend from Laussanne joined us at around 8:00pm, we headed out to Albaretta della Torre to da Cesare for dinner. The chef/owner, Cesare Giaconne, became sort of a cult figure a few years back when Patrica Wells put his restaurant on the list of the top ten casual restaurants in the world. I had eaten a great meal there in 1998, and an ordinary one a year later. But about a year and a half ago Cesare was diagnosed with a brain tumor. And although the restaurant stayed open while he was being treated, the reports were pretty bad. But I had heard that he recovered and was back to work. And indeed this summer in the Hamptons, someone gave a luncheon where he prepared dishes that were to going to be featured in a cookbook he was publishing in English. And then there was a review on this site not that long ago. But I didn’t make the decision to try it again until I was having dinner at Tommaso’s in Bensonhurst two weeks ago where Tommy the owner prevailed on me to go see Cesare and say hello for him. After a 25 minute drive from the center of Alba, you enter Da Cesare into a long, narrow room. At the front of the room is a long table that must hold a dozen plus people or more. Invariably, every time I’ve been there it is full with some type of gastronomic club that has traveled from some far away region in Europe to dine there. This night wasn’t much different and there were three German families with young children who were dining there. As you walk past the table, there is a break in the room and there is a door that leads to a second, smaller dining room. But if you continued ahead, there are two smaller tables and then there is a fireplace where capretto (baby goat) is roasting on a spit. They brought us into the second room, and seated us at the foursome in the back of the room. Luck would have it that all three times I’ve dined there I had the same table. The service seemed pretty unorganized. There were only four people working both rooms and this turned out to be one of the worst things about our meal as it took forever to get anything ordered (including wine for which we had to wait an inordinate amount of time to order.) I started with one of their most famous dishes, sliced porcini mushrooms and peaches. They are served in a sauce that seems to be an emulsion of a mixture of cream and some of the juice of the mushrooms as they cook down. The dish seemed to be a little short on the peaches. What makes the dish work is when the contrast between the sweetness of the peaches and the earthiness (and saltiness) of the mushrooms is present in each bite. If they achieve that balance, the bubbly, creamy sauce acts as a good backdrop for those flavors. But because it was short on peaches it seemed bland. It also seemed a bit watery. They need to cook the peach/mushroom liquid down some more before they add the cream. What could be a great dish served incorrectly. Then the waiter came over top tell us that Cesare would like to prepare for us (on the house of course) an onion stuffed with fontina cheese and then baked in the oven. This was the result of my sending regards from Tommaso when he visited us earlier. About ten minutes later they arrived with an onion the size of a good juice orange that had the top cut off and the center scooped out. It was filled with bubbling cheese. They served us small spoons and as you took a some cheese on it, one tried to scrape the inside of the onion which had been salted to get a little onion pulp on it and also to combine the two flavors. Quite simple and quite yummy. The ubiquitous pasta course was up next. My three companions opted for the agnolotti topped with shaved truffles. Fortunately for me they were offering a polenta dish. It was a shallow pasta bowl where a mound of polenta was smoothed to fit in the bowl, and it sat in a small pool of cream sauce. But in the middle of the bowl, buried underneath the polenta was a red egg yolk. Then they came and completely coated the dish with white truffle. Now the dish was great, but at this point I have to take exception to the Italian way versus the French way. In order to eat the dish properly so the egg gets integrated into the dish (you can imagine the red yolk against the yellow polenta being an attractive combination,) you have to mix the egg into the polenta. But when you mix the egg into the polenta you end up with a sort of porridge concoction that has truffles mixed throughout. Fortunately for me, I forgot about the egg and the issue of what to do with it didn’t come up until I ate my way to the center of the bowl. At that point I mixed it but it was much better beforehand. I think the presentation and taste would be better if they put the egg on top of the polenta by making a small well in the center, and then they cut some grooves so as to let the yolk distribute out in a star shape. Then it would semi-set from the heat of the polenta and they could shave the truffles on tpp. Why hide the great presentation the red yolk makes and why force people to turn what is a great dish into porridge? Okay I’m picking some big nits here on what otherwise would be a great dish (and one I truly enjoyed) but I can’t resist pointing out where great food fails to reach its highest expression as a cuisine. The goat roasted on the spit was next. What they do is to put up various parts of baby goats on spits and then serve it to whomever in the restaurant ordered it on a large platter. The waiter comes to your table with a selection of cuts and you are free to choose which pieces and how many of them you want. This includes seconds, and possibly thirds (I didn’t get that far as my first two portions could be described as ample.) The goat itself had crisp and salty skin with a thin layer of fat under most of it. The meat was sort of whitish in color and it was moist and stringy and was more like the meat you find from veal ribs then what you would see from say lamb. The flavor was mild, with only a slight hint of gaminess. Served with a few nondescript fried potatoes, it was earthy country cooking that gave some decent pleasure. Dessert was a little bit harder to get right. I had wanted the sabayon with moscato d’Asti but it was served with hazelnut cookies. And despite my telling the waiter that I was allergico, and could he substitute something for the cookies, specifically, the Fruitetta dessert they were offering, he insisted on there being no substitutions and he made me order two desserts (I should have just passed as neither was particularly very good.) We drank a bottle of 2000 Sandrone Barbera d’Alba which was a little modern in style for the picky winos at our table. We followed it with a 1996 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falleto Riserva which is going to be a beauty when it is mature. All in all I enjoyed Cesare though it still didn’t hit the heights of my first meal there. We set Thursday aside for wine tasting. We spent the morning at the estate of Aldo Conterno and we followed it with a tasting at Giacomo Conterno, both of which are in Monforte. Both visits were exceptionally good as we toured the facilites (both beautiful,) toured the Aldo Conterno vineyards in a jeep and had exceptionally good tastings at both places with the 1996 Gran Bussia and the 1995 Monfortino being the standouts as expected. For lunch, our first choice the Tratorria della Posta in Monforte was still closed. So we chose to drive to Cossano Belbo for lunch. About forty minutes later we found ourselves in the Tratorria della Posta di Camulin. “Camulin” as it is known, has a bright and cheery dining room, which surprisingly is an unusual attribute in this part of Italy. I have often found to my astonishment, that in both France and Italy, those who built structures in the old days weren’t sensitive to the exposure of sunlight. It was a welcome surprise to be seated in a naturally well-lit room. And to make your meal all that much cheery, the greeting and service at the Camulin is both warm and friendly. There were four starters available, but our waiter (who I believe is the owner’s son) sold us on having an assortment. We started with some salumi of fine quality. This was followed by yellow and orange pepperoncini (roasted peppers,) that were stuffed with chopped mushrooms. The peppers were really fresh tasting, with flesh that seemed thicker then what I’m used to getting in NYC. They had a good crunch to them and each bite would demonstrate a firm yet gentle hand of their being lightly pickled in a vinegar solution. Then they served us Vitello Tonato. I kind of liked the presentation here. They came around with a large platter that had many slices of veal on it sitting alongside a large mound of the tuna mayonnaise. If you wanted a piece, they picked up a slice of veal with some tongs and they wiped it in the mayo and then placed it on your plate. Viola. It looked perfect. Unfortunately as with the Unione, the veal was overcooked although I much preferred the tuna sauce at Camulin, as it was just good quality mayo with a hint of tuna taste. But the next starter set the standard for our trip. They brought us each a plate of Carne Crudo, which was raw veal that was ground ala steak tartar. It was seasoned with just salt, pepper and lemon juice. After they set the plate down they showered it with white truffles. It was so good and fresh tasting that I can still imagine its flavor in my mouth. Clearly this was the dish of the trip and much to my surprise, all four of us agreed. I sat out the pasta course but my three companions enjoyed some taillerin in butter sauce with a gracious shaving of white truffles atop. And for our main dish, we nixed the cooked food that was roast veal and rabbit and we had simply fried eggs with guess what, more shaved truffles on top. We drank a 1998 Pin from La Spinetta. A nice wine, if a bit modern for our palates. And this terrific feast cost 151 euros for the four of us. Bravo. Italian meal of the trip. The afternoon appointments were with Luciano Sandrone and then back to the Barbaresco region to meet with Giorgio Rivetti at La Spinetta. I had tasted with Sandrone in 1998. But I had heard he had built a new cantina since then. This new cantina turned out to be a building worthy of being an estate in Bordeaux. Luciano himself took us around the amazing facility. If you have ever met Luciano, he is a simple man. He appears more the farmer then the businessman. So he seemed a little out of place in his multi-million dollar extravaganza of a cantina, which included an elevator to take us to the various floors in the winery. But prosperity hasn’t changed his demeanor or his level of sincerity and his explanations of the region and its wines are unsurpassed by anyone. If you are familiar with Sandrone’s wines, he was one of the original instigators of the modern style in Barolo. But I found the tasting enjoyable and even the detractors among us were complimenting the wines for their clean taste. We didn’t pull into La Spinetta until about 5:30. They led us into a large tasting room where two other groups were tasting. Giorgio Rivetti, a nice looking man who appears to be in his early 40’s and who also speaks perfect English was working the room. His tasting room was a different scene then at the other wineries. They were all serious and dour. This was like a party where there was cheese available if you wanted it, and there was also a beautiful old deli style meat slicer at one end of the room, surely for times where they slice up salumi for the guests. We tasted through the range of wines and to a man we were tremendously impressed with both Barbarescos, La Gallina and the Starderi which at least two of our party thought was the wine of the day. Hmm, it might not be bad to get some of those into my cellar. Dinner was at Guido. In spite of reading mixed reports about it lately, I had never been. And since they are closing at the end of the year to move into the new location, I figured I needed to try it at least once. Guido is located about a twenty minute drive north of Alba in the small village of Costiogle d’Asti. It’s easy enough to get there, until the last five kilometers, which of course take you up a number of switchbacks to get to the village. The restaurant is in the main piazza in the center of town, in a building that looks like a bank. And to make it even less sunny and cheery, it’s in the basement of the building. Well I guess the rent is cheap. To cut to the chase, our meal was resolutely disappointing. We had the ubiquitous Vitello Tonnato. For once someone cooked the veal properly pink. But I found the tuna sauce to be grainy and chalky. It was better in the simple manner it was served in at Camulin. The other new dish they served us was a plate of sliced cardoons in a fondutta (sauce of cheese and cream) that was resolutely mediocre. My risotto with truffles could have been had anywhere, and my beef braised in Barolo sauce was so overcooked and dry that the two of us that ordered it found it inedible. Fortuntely Piero (a really sweet guy) noticed we weren’t eating it and he replaced it with baby goat. Slightly better but it paled in comparison to the goat at Cesare. We drank a 1989 Sandone Cannubi Boschis, which in keeping with our afternoon tasting, was as clean as a wine gets. I enjoyed it, especially as the black cherry flavor intensified with air. But others at the table were less impressed with the modern style and the lack of complexity they seek in a Barolo. We followed it with a 1985 Riccardo Ratti Barolo which was slightly lighter in style and kind of funky. A decent wine but not one that wets my whistle. We finished up with a 1986 Barolo (Serralunga I believe) from Giacosa. That was drinking particularly well for a non-heralded vintage. On the way back to Alba we recapped the events of the prior two days. We all agreed that the wine tastings we had were superior and we were sorry we didn’t allocate an additional day to visit other wineries. We could easily have filled the day by visiting Altare, Scavino, Gaja and Giacosa. As for the food, my friend Dwight, who is both smarter than I and also thinks in a more concise manner, put it succinctly. “Lunches are really good” he said, “but dinner is the same as lunch. And to make things worse, they try to make the food fancier at dinner which screws it up.” I couldn’t agree more. And it both reminded me of why I travel to Italy less often then I do in France, as well as pinpoint a certain aspect of the French/Italy debate that goes on around here. As to my travels, I have said for years that I am always disappointed with my evenings in Italy. There is just less variety there as to what to eat. And that is mainly a function of the restaurants in a region almost all being the same. I mean that they served us Vittelo Tonato at three of the four places we ate in is really silly. And if you were to compare the menus all across Piemonte, I would bet that the restaurants all serve pretty much the same food. The other thing is that there seems to be nobody in the region (by that I mean the Langhe and surrounding areas) that has elevated the cuisine to a higher level. One would think that in a zona gastronomica that somebody would be breaking (or would have broken) new ground. But Vitello Tonatto in the design of a flower isn’t exactly new ground in my book. And if you add this lack of interesting technique to the issue of the menus being the same everywhere, it can make those evenings pretty disappointing, especially compared to the variety of foods, and variety of presentations you can find in France, or even in the U.S. or U.K. But the dishes that are good, Mama Mia, boy they are really great. Maybe I can take day trips? A final note about truffles, we made it to the market on Friday morning. For somewhere between $75 and $125, one could buy themselves a pretty large truffle. And there was no shortage of them as there must have been a few thousands examples for sale. And I can tell you that the two I brought home with me seem to be of much better quality then what they were serving us in the restaurants. In fact my sons have been complaining about the aroma in the fridge ever since I got home last night. Fortunately for them, I will have to eat them quickly.
