Our Favorite Dishes of the Trip

Best gelato:
-Herb-based offerings from Gelateria del Teatro in Rome (sage & raspberry; wild fennel & caramelized almonds, and lavender & white peach.

-Fig gelato from Fior di Latte in Trastevere, Rome managed to capture the essence of seasonal small figs called “settembrini”.

-Crema della Nonna (custard-flavored gelato) from Natale, Lecce.

Best seafood dish:
-Grano con cozze: grano with mussels in a simple tomato base at L’Arco del Porto, Monopoli, Puglia. Grano is one of those fascinating ancient whole grains: http://www.sunnylandmills.com/grano_ancient_grain.shtml

NB: Grano was one of the very few food items we brought home from Italy.

Best fish dish:
Tuna steak (and I don’t even really like tuna and never order it!) as part of the 10-item appetizer course (antipasti della casa) brought to us at L’Arco del Porto in Monopoli, Puglia. It was seared on the outside (with a slight balsamic glaze), pretty rare on the inside, and was unlike any tuna I have ever had. I was already full, but I still wolfed it down with pink peppercorns and red onions from another appetizer. It was as big as my head.

Best pasta dish: We ate MANY pastas on this trip, so I think it is fair to include several:
-Cacio e pepe with fried zucchini flowers at Antico Arco in Rome (pasta with pecorino romano and freshly ground pepper). Jeff also wanted to make sure I gave a shoutout to Roscioli’s version because of its amazing texture :-):

cacio e pepe at Roscioli

-Orecchiette integrale con broccoli e capocollo at Il Ritrovo degli Amici, Martina Franca (whole-grain pasta with broccoli and grated local cheese). It is impossible to describe the complexity and texture of this dish, so I am not even going to try.
-Fusilli mollica e crusco (if you thought the previous pasta was not basic enough, here is a pasta with breadcrumbs and crushed red Senise peppers, a Lucan specialty). The ultimate embodiment of cucina povera (poor man’s cuisine), this dish does not feature any fresh vegetables, fish or meat. The owner of Le Botteghe quizzed me about the translation of “crusco” before I was allowed to order it (I passed); quite understandable, since it sounds like some very rare and delicious crustacean.
-Ceci e tria at il Frantoio in Puglia: a ribbon-shaped pasta with a sauce of whole and pureed chickpeas.
-Bottarga spaghetti at Antico Arco featuring mullet’s roe from Cetara on the Amalfi coast. It was topped with the most amazing seabass carpaccio (actually, “carpaccio” was their description; the pieces of fish were actually pretty substantial, much to my joy.

What all these pastas have in common: absence of fancy ingredients and complex sauces.

Best appetizer:
-Very lightly marinated zucchini with mint (part of the 14-course appetizer offering at Parco di Castro, Puglia). Zucchini were in season, and during the course of the trip, we had them on pizza (at Forno del Campo dei Fiori in Rome, – it was incidentally the most inspired by the slice, or rather, “by the chunk” pizza we had);

zucchini pizza at Forno Campo de' Fiori, Rome

as a carpaccio in a salad, and in a number of pastas.
-Bruschetta at A’Paranza, Atrani, Amalfi coast (crusty country bread, tomatoes and olive oil). Brilliantly simple, it was our favorite rendition of the ubiquitous classic.
-Caponata at Al Vino Al Vino, Rome. This delectable Sicilian dish is made fresh every day by the Sicilian mother of the wine bar’s owner. I am fascinated by the sweet-and-sour combinations, especially by something that is as incredibly balanced as this version.
-Lampascione and other preserved vegetables (verdure sott’olio) at Il Cucco, Cisternino, Puglia.

Best cheese:
-Burrata with semi-dried pugliese tomatoes at Roscioli in Rome
-Different types of ricotta, scamorza, mozzarella, all eaten within 10 seconds of being made (and the smoked and aged stuff – straight in the cheese aging room) at Caseificio Crovace, Puglia:

Best contorno (side dish):
A plate of porcinis with parsley at Cumpa Cosima, Ravello.

Best fruit:
-Moscato grapes from the neighborhood market in Rome on via Montebello.
-A fig from the orchard at b&b Casa Cuccaro, Nocelle

Best dessert:
Miniature cannolo from Cristalli di Zucchero in Rome
Best soup:
Zuppa di fagioli (bean soup with tomatoes and rosemary) at Donna Rosa, Montepertuso, Amalfi coast.
Best pizza:
Di Matteo
I Decumani

(both in Naples…)

Best pastry:
Warm frolla from Sfogliatelle Mary, Naples (more on that later).
Pasticciotto con pignoli from Avio, Lecce, Puglia (Leccese specialty pastry with a custard filling and in this case, pine nuts).

Best sign:

sign in front of a shop in Ravello

Advertisement

We Are Back!

Notwithstanding my job requirements (I am a credit analyst), my mind is still pretty jumbled from the trip, so I thought I would start our account of Italian adventures with some random awards:

 Hi-Lo Award (Top Casual Eating and Haute Cuisine Experiences)

Lo: Like two pigs  Like two hyenas, we tore into our full-size pizzas with our bare hands, sauce and cheese dripping, crouched with two pizza boxes under a small awning in an alley in the pouring rain, at 10 o’clock in the morning in Naples, via dei Tribunali. It took us somewhere around 5 minutes (which admittedly, does not compare favorably with the eating speed of Pepe, our Amalfi-coast born driver from the day before who asserts he can eat a full-size pizza in 2 minutes flat). Then again, he probably did it sitting down properly, and using utensils…

The mutilated and consumed pizzas were marinara and margherita from Pizzeria Di Matteo, and they turned out to be, just like Pugliese chef Laura Giordano had promised, “the best pizza your mouth has ever had”. Totally basic and truly amazing…

 

 

 

 

 

Hi: Prior to our departure, we had made a decision that no Michelin-starred restaurant will be visited on this trip. Luckily, there are many, many chowworthy choices in the non-Michelin continuum. For my birthday, we had made a reservation at Antico Arco, a fine dining establishment on top of the Janiculum hill overlooking Rome. Looking all spiffy (check out a picture of Jeff, looking positively Italian :-)), we had a nice passeggiata (evening walk) before the meal, as the sun was setting over the Eternal City:

All in all, I second the opinion of many others that it is a must for any serious foodie eating their way through Rome. My amberjack tartar and bottarga spaghetti with seabass carpaccio, as well as Jeff’s poached egg, asparagus, yogurt, ricotta and black truffle appetizer and cacio e pepe with zucchini flowers were all exquisite:

Incidentally, this meal also featured the best red of the trip (Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso “Guardiola” 2007), a profound and elegant, Burgundian-style Nerello Mascalese from Mount Etna, Sicily).