It is with quite high expectations that we went to this lovely little restaurant discovered by V (yes, it is all to her credit this time) on a lovely October night in Firenze. The restaurant is in the area of Borgo San Frediano, in our favourite Oltrarno part of town. Here you are not overwhelmed by the crazy amount of tourists invading the city on the other side of the river and you can really enjoy a true Florentine experience. But don't expect to find traditional Florentine cuisine here...this is something different and we will discover it soon.
The restaurant is quite small, so it is definitely better to book in advance. We will discover during the evening that the chef is a young talented 24 years old "kid" who already has a experience in a very important restaurant in San Sebastian, Martin Berasategui. The atmosphere is quite modern and very elegant, you can have a quick peek on their website here.
After we were seated we received the menu and a lovely white wine as aperitivo (Bianco di Custoza, I dont remember the details only that was mainly made with Garganega grapes) to accompany a little snack of mini-mini "muffins" with olives. The first big surprise came from the menu. Forget the usual concept of primo, antipasto or secondo, here the menu is divided into "IL PESCE" (the fish), "LA CARNE" (the meat), "LE VERDURE" (the vegetables) with a proposal of cheese and dessert. And another huge surprise, especially for a restaurant in Tuscany: THERE IS NO PASTA!
Ok, now that you have recovered from the shock I can keep going with the rest of the night.
Considering we were very curious about the proposal we decided to go for a tasting menu with 4 different dishes. We picked two from the meat section and one from the vegetables also to keep a bit of consistency with our wine pairing. Touching quickly on the wine list, it is small but with some interesting proposals of very small producers. Forget the big names, here there are interesting things to discover. Our pick was a Bolgheri Rosso Poderi Ritorti 2008 from Azienda Agricola I Luoghi, a really nice and smooth wine, not too powerful as some of the wines of this area tend to be, but rather really elegant.
But now let's go to our meal, we had:
The restaurant is quite small, so it is definitely better to book in advance. We will discover during the evening that the chef is a young talented 24 years old "kid" who already has a experience in a very important restaurant in San Sebastian, Martin Berasategui. The atmosphere is quite modern and very elegant, you can have a quick peek on their website here.
After we were seated we received the menu and a lovely white wine as aperitivo (Bianco di Custoza, I dont remember the details only that was mainly made with Garganega grapes) to accompany a little snack of mini-mini "muffins" with olives. The first big surprise came from the menu. Forget the usual concept of primo, antipasto or secondo, here the menu is divided into "IL PESCE" (the fish), "LA CARNE" (the meat), "LE VERDURE" (the vegetables) with a proposal of cheese and dessert. And another huge surprise, especially for a restaurant in Tuscany: THERE IS NO PASTA!
Ok, now that you have recovered from the shock I can keep going with the rest of the night.
Considering we were very curious about the proposal we decided to go for a tasting menu with 4 different dishes. We picked two from the meat section and one from the vegetables also to keep a bit of consistency with our wine pairing. Touching quickly on the wine list, it is small but with some interesting proposals of very small producers. Forget the big names, here there are interesting things to discover. Our pick was a Bolgheri Rosso Poderi Ritorti 2008 from Azienda Agricola I Luoghi, a really nice and smooth wine, not too powerful as some of the wines of this area tend to be, but rather really elegant.
But now let's go to our meal, we had:
- Tartare di Manzo con Gelato di Sedanorapa e Vinaigrette di Alici (beef tartare with kohlrabi ice cream and anchovy vinaigrette). Amazing the quality of the meat, interesting and really well done the combination with the ice cream of kohlrabi. Fantastico!
- Gnudi di Ricotta e Pecorino con Crema di Melanzana Pomodoro Confit e Pesto (sort of gnocchi made from ricotta and pecorino in an aubergine cream, tomatoes confit and pesto). Very delicate plate, the gnudi are tender and they pair very well with the cream. Really nice but probably the plate that impressed me less.
- La Cinta Senese. Three little taste of different part of this special black pig that is living only in Tuscany. A zucchini cream with a crumble of salsiccia from cinta senese, a little hamburger with porchetta of cinta senese and to finish the salami of cinta senese. The hamburger and the crumble of salsiccia were to die for, absolutely loved the strong flavours of this dish and it went soooooo well with the wine.....LOVELY!!!
- Dolce: for me Tiramisu' Personale and for V Souffle' al Cioccolato and extra virgin olive oil with a basil gelato and tomato confit. What to say, an amazing end of a really good dinner. Tiramisu' exceptionally light and in a version I had never see before, the souffle' one of the best desserts I have had in a long time. The combination of flavours between chocolate, basil and tomato was stunning.....
So, definitely I suggest this restaurant and considering that the menu changes frequently we are already looking forward to being back and finding other creations of this young chef. Also the service was extremely nice and friendly. BRAVISSIMI!
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