Bill Klapp
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Posts posted by Bill Klapp
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I have had luck walking in, but I have also been turned away when trying to make a reservation. Go for the reservation.
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Sure do.
Localita Sant' Anna (3 km beyond the central piazza in Monforte d' Alba, if you are coming from Alba, on the left and slightly below the road just after you crest a hill)
Telephone/fax: (0173)78120
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Al Mascaron
Calle Longa Santa Maria Formosa 5225
Castello
(041)5225995
I did not make it to Da Fiore this trip, but I did make it to Al Mascaron. In many ways, Mascaron is in perfect contrast to Alle Testiere: it starts with the same impeccably fresh seafood (the cannochie, or mantis shrimp, a scampi relative, were literally jumping out of the bowl at the bar), but they serve it up simply, and not without a little attitude (mostly grumpy). Seafood, pasta, house red, house white, check. Absolutely delicious, but Alle Testiere stands for the proposition that trattorie in Venezia that are willing to ramp it up a notch or two can work miracles with the local raw ingredients. Other than a decent pizza in the Dorsoduro, I did not eat another memorable meal during my stay in Venezia.
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Alle Testiere
Calle del Mondo Novo 5801
Castello
(041)5227220
I recently partook of Alle Testiere, which quickly became my favorite eatery in Venezia. My wife and a friend had a stunning cream of pumpkin soup with a half-dozen grilled scampi watching over it from the side of the bowl. I started with whole calamari (those magnificent 3-inch long, purple fellows with their wings still intact) stuffed with radicchio, in a sauce touched with cinnamon, cloves and other pie spices. Fantastic! A couple of us split a plate of spaghetti with the tiniest, sweetest clams I have had in a long time, and there was also sushi-grade tuna, served up with soy (a little too much, actually) and ginger in a Japanese antipasto, and then grilled lightly for a perfect entree. One of our party had sole for her entree which, good though it was, remained sole. I had a John Dory (orange roughy in other parts of the world) that brought tears to my eyes. It was dressed in a fresh citrus sauce, and advertised as served with "fines herbes". Yeah, well, "fines" did not begin to describe the tiny bits of impeccably fresh and pungent herbs that decorated my fish. I believe that a caper or two made its way into the mix, too. In truth, the chef loves to experiment with non-traditional herbs and spices, and he is not always successful. And for that I am most grateful, because, but for the occasional off-center offering, Michelin would have parted with a star by now. The service and the wine list were both superb.
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John, one of the problems in Modena is that they simply don't see many English-speakers. Before we could manage in Italian, we found in Modena that we were either curiosities that received a warmer reception than was deserved by those who could speak a few words of English, or else treated with some reserve and skepticism, but not badly. (It is important to note that while Craig Camp is fluent in Italian, he is still treated badly in Modena. That is because he is too cheap to spring for the really old balsamico!)
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I have always been a big fan of Giusti's balsamico products at every level, but the annoying thing there is that their private stash (only some of which makes it into their commercial products from time to time) is supposed to be the sine qua non, but no visits and no tastes for we mere mortals.
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I have eaten a lot at Trattoria della Posta over the years, and I have NEVER been disappointed. Not even by my own injudicious selection of an antipasto or secondo. Upon reflection, I believe it to be the one of the most consistent kitchens in the Piemonte (if not the most consistent). And here is the funny thing about it: Trattoria della Posta serves, by and large, only the classic Piemontese dishes, and its new space, as wonderful as it is, is simply not the type of dining room, like some in the Piemonte (Da Cesare comes to mind, or the back room with the fireplace at Camulin in Cossano Belbo, or the antique beauty of La Contea in Neive), that promotes a nostalgia that brings you back time after time, even when there is some inconsistency in the kitchen. (By contrast, nearly everyone waxes nostalgic for della Posta's original location, a converted abandoned post office just off of the central piazza in Monforte. You had to walk through the kitchen to get to the dining room, so if you walked slowly and observed and smelled as much as you could, it was also a cafeteria! The dining room was tiny, and I recall there being lace all over the place.) To be sure, the new facility is pretty. It is set on a small hillside a few kilometers outside of town, with a view of the side of an adjacent hill that is vaguely Tuscan in its beauty. Many of the large windows in the dining room create framed views of the hill that look almost like paintings. The new dining room is far more spacious than old, and decorated in warm and muted earth tones that are most welcoming. In warm weather, there is a portico-like structure that allows al fresco dining with views of the hillside and a lush interior lawn, with a nice cross-breeze. The bathrooms, done up with artisanal ceramics, are a pleasure to visit! The new space is much more formal than the old (but still casual), and the upgrading of the dining room proved a harbinger of the great things that followed from the kitchen. The service at della Posta, including the wine service, has always been unpretentious and first-rate. The hostess, Claudia, is warm, personable and always helpful.
And against that background, I am here to say that, in my judgment, the food has improved, in a subtle but profound way, over each of the past two years, without significant changes in the menu. Why? It is all in the execution.
The key to understanding Trattoria della Posta's growing appeal lies not just in its own history, but in the changing landscape of traditional Piemontese cooking. For years, the gold standards for most dishes were the versions created by Lidia Alciati at the now-defunct Da Guido in Costigliole d' Asti. Vitello tonnato, agnolotti dal plin, peppers stuffed with tuna, capunet (Savoy cabbage with a savory meat and vegetable filling), the list goes on forever. At the same time, however, Da Guido served the traditional "full (Pie)monte" menu of three antipasti, pasta, meat secondo, cheese and dessert. While it was possible to elect to eat less, if one ate the full slate, you needed help getting up the stairs after dinner. Lidia's food was never heavy on a plate-by-plate basis, but it was substantial, and the cumulative effect powerful. Her classics continue to be available at both of the new Guido ristoranti (one in Santo Stefano Belbo, where she still cooks most often while the youngest Alciati son, Andrea, tries to master her technique, and the latest in Pollenzo, where middle son Ugo, her heir apparent in the kitchen, is in residence), but they are being rendered with some inconsistency at present (one hopes that it is a temporary phenomenon). A few years ago, it would not have occurred to me to compare my dining experiences at Da Guido and Trattoria della Posta. The latter had often been a lunch destination for me: a single antipasto, a pasta or secondo, and maybe cheese or dolci with a decent bottle of wine. But even before the old Guido closed, I found that we dined at della Posta three or four times for every time we visited Da Guido, increasingly at night and for the main meal of the day on Sunday.
The reason is now clear to me: the food at della Posta is just as rich and savory as that served at Da Guido, and it makes use of the same "prima materia" (prime ingredients), but almost dish by dish, it has become lighter, more subtle and more refined over the past few years, and therein lies its attraction.
Trattoria della Posta proposed two fixed menus this fall, along with extensive a la carte offerings. There was a 100 Euro white truffle menu, which, as pointed out by a poster in another recent thread, included four courses such as egg in fonduta (a Fontina cheese-based sauce) and tajarin with butter, the classic excuses for eating white truffles, but no real secondo. A truffle menu would never be my first choice at della Posta. Instead, I might (and did, actually) go a la carte and spring for the extra 25 Euro to cover my pasta in tartufi bianchi. On the other hand, the 35 Euro traditional Piemontese menu has to be one of the greatest values in the entire country. That menu varies a little from time to time, but invariably leads with strength: hand-chopped carne cruda (raw veal), dressed in the finest EVOO from Lake Garda and artfully presented, which literally melts in your mouth; a perfect vitello tonnato, lighter than air; their famous stuffed onion, filled with crushed amaretti and other delights, all calculated to enhance, not mask, the sweetness of the onion itself; an excellent pasta, perhaps the classic agnolotti dal plin (miniature ravioli stuffed with a savory mixed meat and vegetable filling) or the gossamer-thin tajarin (or sometimes spinach ravioli stuffed with goat cheese) with a ragu of local sausage and leeks; a roast meat, fowl or game entree, chicken cacciatora on my last trip, but often quail, rabbit or kid; and an incomparable panna cotta (cooked, sweetened cream actually, but with Piemontese cream, more delicious than words can adequately convey). The a la carte menu can drive you crazy: an elaborately garnished foie gras antipasto; sweet red and yellow peppers stuffed with tuna, capers, anchovies and homemade mayonnaise; a frittata filled with fresh morels and asparagus; agnolotti stuffed with a fonduta made from my favorite Piemontese cheese, the rare toma d' Elva; torrone semifreddo--the list goes on and on.
But again, it is all in the execution. No plate contains too much food, nor too little. One can eat the full 35 Euro menu at noon and leave comfortably full, but yet able to contemplate the possibility of dinner. The service is prompt, pleasant and efficient. The wine list harbors bottles for every taste and price range, all fairly priced. And yet, the angel is in the details. One never finds a piece of overlooked connective tissue in one's carne cruda. The roasted meats, whether quail, rabbit or chicken, are moist and perfectly cooked inside, but all sport a skin (or crust) that makes the best Peking duck you ever ate seem absolutely soggy by comparison. Every pasta dish that I have had there is on my short list of the Piemonte's best. There is no such thing as a bad, or even average, dessert at Trattoria della Posta. And there is rarely a winner in the inevitable "yours was good, but I like mine best of all" competition! I would be remiss if I did not note that, recently, more and more new dishes, especially antipasti, are appearing on a seasonal basis, and many, while featuring the finest, freshest local ingredients, are NOT Piemontese classics (yet), but rather, generally perfect expressions of the chef's gift for lightening and updating the traditional recipes and ingredients. I am convinced that Trattoria della Posta gives us a glimpse of the bright future of Piemontese cooking. As the beer commercial says, "Tastes great. Less filling." But unlike in the commercial, at Trattoria della Posta, those two concepts are not at odds with one another, but rather, co-exist peacefully. And unlike the case of the beer in question, both assertions are true! It is all in the execution...
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Adam, I was just paraphrasing the book. I defer to you completely. I only eat the stuff in copious quantities, rather than studying it! And a question for the crowd-has anybody read the volume entitled "Pasta" in the series containing this book, as referenced by MatthewB above? I just bought it, and if it is going to hurt my feelings, I would just as soon know that now.
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This link will give a little more background...
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I am busy reading a scholarly treatise on the cultural history of Italian cuisine, and while it is not exactly summer beach reading, I find it absolutely fascinating. The book, Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, is co-authored by Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari. Montanari, a professor at the University of Bologna, is perhaps the preeminent Italian food historian, and the author or co-editor of other works dealing with the history of food in general and in Europe in particular. This volume, originally written in Italian, became available in English translation last month. A forewarning: this is a serious work, and while it will occasionally bring a smile to your face (the opening quote from the series editor's preface: "What is the glory of Dante compared to spaghetti?"), it can also be a little dry for the reader who does not share my obsession with all things culinary and Italian. On balance, it is highly readable (the footnotes are all buried in the back of the book, and thankfully, not at all necessary for the illumination of the text) and extremely informative. I may post again after I have finished it, but I wanted to share with you a couple of the tidbits asserted in this book. The shocker, although not documented to an historical certainty, is the authors' belief that the Arabs gave the gift of pasta to BOTH the Italians and the Chinese! (The logic is impressive, since there is a school of historical thought that claims that Marco Polo's notes of his travels may be fictional, and there is also evidence that the Chinese and Italians may have had pasta at the same time, as far back as can be traced. The authors suggest that the Arabs, being a nomadic people, made the first dried pasta, the ultimate roadfood!) It also appears that the Italians invented the tossed green salad, and were the first European people to use herbs in cooking (although I personally believe that the Greeks probably started the trend and the Italians merely grew it). Also, the authors note repeatedly that many of the late-arriving raw ingredients upon which Italy's most famous dishes are based (corn, potatoes and tomatoes, to name a few) were presumed to be dangerous and inedible by the aristocracy, who, with a flourish of generosity, threw them to the peasantry, who in turn cultivated them and went on to give us a superior corn-based polenta, gnocchi, ragu and pizza. To hear the authors describe that process recalled the Life cereal television commercial of many years ago. You remember it: "Let Mikey try it. He'll eat anything! He LIKES it! He LIKES it!" More importantly, the book explains the history of some of Italy's most healthy eating habits, which does much to explain why they are so damn thin and good-looking! I assume that this book will not be in print for long in the U.S., so if you are as hard-core as I am, get while the getting is good.
(I post this with an apology to whoever sent Craig and I a private message some months ago, looking for primary source materials on Italian food history. This book, although not footnoted with the rigors of a doctoral dissertation in the U.S., is a great source for such materials.)
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I say just read Florida Jim's tasting notes. At his current pace, reliable statisticians tell me that he will have tasted every wine on earth AND posted a decent note on each by the year 2011!
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Antine first, Tornavento second and Tre Stelle third on the higher end, Rabaja on the rustic end.
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Actually, no. Various local ristoranti. It was at Antine in Barbaresco this year (a Michelin one-star and one great place).
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I note that Combal.0 nailed a 53 for food. I think thast its overall score may have been adversely impacted because it has a really reasonably priced wine list that strives to provide options well-suited to the food, rather than flashing the big-bucks bottles!
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Menton 1, just ate there myself, and I found it to be the best of its price range/type in Venezia. Our seafood was all exquisitely fresh and perfectly prepared. I had mantis shrimp to die for, as well as superb spaghetti with verace ("true") clams. My wife and a friend split the best branzino I have ever tasted. Tommy is right that the staff is a little rough around the edges, and there is only house wine, but seafood in Venezia does not get too much better (except at Alle Testiere, but there, you are talking bigger bucks and gourmet aspirations).
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Futronic, during that time, many of the local ristoranti offer special tastings of the newly released Barbarescos, so you won't be shut out, for sure, but, as I recall, you can kill many birds with one stone at the special events. One warning: there is an outfit called Minuto in the town of Barbaresco, and there stuff is strictly tourist-trap crap.
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The truffles are starting to roll in in paying quantities now, but the story is still going to be relatively few, small, very expensive (but with the price dropping a bit in the last week), but of generally excellent quality. I passed through Verona, Venice and Bergamo on my way out of the Piemonte, and nobody was offering truffles. While I was in the Piemonte, I had truffles only at Antine and Trattoria della Posta, and they were outstanding both times. I can confirm theakston's pricing info above.
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Had my first snort of the highly touted 2001 French stickies last night, with a pot full of foie gras from Alsace. Cauhape has produced an October-picked bottling (8.75 Euro a half-bottle in Paris), as well as a thicker, sweeter November bottling for 28 Euro/750ml. A Quintessence from grapes picked in January is due to be released soon. The first two are off all measurable quality/price ratio charts! Do not miss them.
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Chronic and serious BS! 1999 was a fine Barolo vintage-FOR SOME. 2000 figures to be a fine Barbaresco vintage-FOR SOME. 2001 has the locals pretty excited, and I heard a lot of "best since 1996, maybe better" talk from the classicists, so maybe 2001 should have been considered for the 100-point nod. By the way, the Piemontese wine community has had time to study the new Wine Advocate, and to a person, they are dismissive of Daniel Thomases (as is this writer). He should stick to light white wines from Northeast Italy! Between Thomases and Rovani, a case could be made that Parker is hell-bent upon destroying his own franchise.
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See my comments on La Meridiana in Alba, I think on the Alba accomodations post. It is agroturismo, but not hard-core with meals. They have two or three apartments, one with a terrace (ask for it, and feel free to use my name-the owners are close friends). There is a fully equipped kitchenette/dining room and separate bedroom and bathroom. Perfect for two, and cheap to boot.
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Mike, I do not know whether the influence is Japanese, Vietnamese or otherwise, but my friend Marisa, a retired chef, sensed an Asian hand at work in the kitchen. Very, very subtle, though. By the way, I mentioned in another post that Villa Crespi is Gambero Rosso's best overall Piemontese ristorante with a 90 score. I should have also said that Combal.0 rates highest for food quality, at 53. Al Sorriso also trumps Villa Crespi for food quality (52 to 51). But this is splitting hairs!
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La Meridiana, and local B&Bs in general, are better than ANY Alba-area hotel. They are industrial in character! And this just in from my 2004 Gambero Rosso, purchased yesterday: at 90, GR rates the dining room at Villa Crespi the best ristorante in the Piemonte, 2 points ahead of Combal.0 and Flipot at 88, and 3 ahead of Al Sorriso at 87 (Le Ciau del Tornavento in Treiso rounds out the GR top five). Since Flipot, Sorriso and Combal.0 are three of my top five in Italia, query whether you should miss Villa Crespi! Work in a lunch at Crespi?
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balex, I would have to guess air flow around the cork at varying temperatures, because if my cellar in Italy is any indication, the temperature changes are glacially slow. Even in a wild year like this one, a 20F swing over 12 months is not profound in an area where 20F swings between day and night, when a weather front comes in from the Alps, is not unknown.
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Mark: southern Italy, in the Naples-Amalfi Coast latitude. balex, I think that you summarized things very well, but I would add two tidbits: the conventional wisdom is that wine should never be stored above 70F for an extended time. The theory is that, not only will aging be accelerated, but also that ageworthy wines can never develop the complexity that they portend. In all that I have read, however, the 70F mark seems to be somewhat arbitrary. I have a passive cellar in Italy, and a recording thermometer in it. I was worried about this summer's record heat, but when I returned to Italy, I saw that the high temperature was 73.6F, and probably not that for very long. I tasted through some of my wines, and they were all fine (thank God!). I wanted to focus on your fluctuation comment, however. While daily fluctuations are certainly bad, my experience has been that very gradual, year-round fluctuations from, say, 45 to 65F (and this would be the maximum range, I think), are actually better for the wine than the constant 55F delivered by cooling units (assuming proper humidity for the corks). This is the case in all of the great passive cellars in Europe, including those of wine producers, and I believe that the very gradual and subtle changes in temperature promote greater complexity while preserving the fruit. Wine generally freezes around 26F due to the alcohol, and while aging comes to a standstill at some point, I think that you are right when you say that, short of freezing, cold does little or no damage to a wine.
Bistecca Fiorentina
in Italy: Dining
Posted
God, it looks super, but does it taste good when not served by one of the dyspeptic 75-year-old waiters from Peter Luger?