In love with Tuscany

Last post of November dedicated to some other amazing experience we had in this lovely region of Italy.

Being in Chianti last weekend driving through this amazing hills with an enchanting view was just magical, all these colours mixing up like in a beautiful painting...it was just a fantastic experience

Our path leads us to the tiny and very typical village of Panzano in Chianti were we booked for lunch at Dario +.
Dario Cecchini is a butcher in this village that thanks to his smartness and definitely good marketing create a huge business around the famous and typical bistecca alla fiorentina. In the village there is his butcher shop plus three restaurant, Dario + opened only for lunch and where we had our meal, Solociccia opened only for dinner and l'Officina della Bistecca.

Our lunch was lovely not only for the very high quality of the food (for lunch two menus are proposed, one that includes a fantastic hamburger made with this high quality meat, and a second called accoglienza that includes a dish called "sushi del Chianti" and other top local delicacies) but also for the conviviality and the possibility you have to make new friends during the meal. Lunch is in fact served on a big table where everybody can make friendship with their neighbour, so that's what we did! A very nice experience extremely recommended. Also to mention, you can take your own wine and drink it with no additional charge!

Cinta senese

After this lovely lunch we headed to a meat and salumi paradise, Macelleria Falorni in Greve In Chianti. In the beautiful main square of Greve under the arcades you find this place where you can really find all what a meat lover want including an incredible selection of all different and possible kind of salumi. We are looking forward to try some of the Cinta Senese specialities we bought there!!!!

And to close these set of recommendation we cannot avoid to mention a place where you can find some good wines to pair with all these lovely flavours. The place to go when in Firenze is Vinoteca al Chianti. Fantastic selection of sometime very small italian producer but also some fantastic stuff from Burgundy and an amazing selection of Champagne. At the end of my morning of purchase they offer me a little sip from a bottle that they had there open without telling me what it was. As soon as the liquid touch my lips it blows my mind....no wonder, it was an Yquem 1982!!! Only this was worth the trip to this fantastic enoteca. A must go for all wine lovers.

MILANO

Lovely weekend spent in my city that I am starting to love more and more now that I am not living there anymore. No restaurants to talk about considering that both nights we were there we had excellent dinner at friend's places where we shared some great food and a few amazing bottle of wines.
What I want to briefly talk about are a few places in Milano that I absolutely love and one more recent discovery.

First of all my favorite wine shop: Cantine Isola in Via Paolo Sarpi. In the middle of the Chinatown of Milano you can find this amazing little wine shop with one of the best and most interesting wine selection in town. You can feel the passion and the continuos research that the owners put to choose the labels they are presenting. Also, not to forget, this place is a great spot for "aperitivo" considering that they have an incredible number of wines that you can try by the glass together with an interesting selection of different kind of crostini that keep going out of the kitchen during the whole evening. Really a place not to miss in town.

A few steps away from the enoteca you can find another little gem for gourmet fanatics: La Baita del Formaggio. As the name may suggest here the speciality is cheese, an incredible selection, but also their salumi and cotechino are good. If I would be living in this area would be so easy to organize a dinner with such amazing shops nearby!!!

Another "must go" for me when I am in town is Comptoir de France in the area of Porta Romana. First of all is a wine shop, with an amazing selection of wines from all region in France. But the real reason that took me here every time I am in town is to make a supply of terrine. They have a great variety of this amazing pate' coming from different french region. Our favorite is the most classic "Terrine de Campagne". Amazing paired with a glass of simple and easy red wine.

And now the most recent discovery. Downtown Milano in one of the side gallery in Corso Vittorio Emanuele a new super-luxury mall opened:Excelsior Milano. What interests us (especially me!!!) is the heaven you will find on the floors underground. First of all a really interesting cellars with a beautiful wine selection plenty of interesting labels and producers. But then the food section....I can hardly imagine a better selection of delicacies all in one place than here. If you love food I think this place will become one of your hot spot not only in Milano but in the whole Italy. Try and judge it yourself!!

And as I mentioned at the beginning let's talk a bit about the wines we had during the week end as well.
First of all an amazing red coming from the North part of the Rhone Valley. Crozes Hermitage La Rouvre 2007 from Yann Chave. An amazing and complex Syrah and definitely one of the best price-quality value I had recently. Normally wines from this denomination are less considered and easier but this one was really a hit.
Another very different but also quite impressive red was the Grumello 2007 from Mamete Prevostini. I love these Nebbiolos coming from the mountain not only for their elegance and perfumes, but also because I love this area of Italy and I admire all the work that all the winegrowers of this area needs to do in order to produce these fantastic wines. Chapeau to all of them!
Another mountain wine, a very different product. The "Vino da Uva Stramatura - Fletry Au Vent" from Grosjean. A passito (sweet style of wine) with grapes dried by the wind produced in Valle D'Aosta in a very limited number of bottles. Absolutely lovely it paired amazingly with our dessert.
And from Italy to France again for the last wine. Coteaux de Layon Fleurs d'Erables 2010 from Domaine des Sablonnettes. Chenin blanc from the Loire Valley produced by this really small Domaine. Not overly sweet was a fantastic companion for a cheese plate with a selection of Brie de Meaux, Vacherin Mont d'Or, Blue d'Auvergne and Langres. 

Around Europe

I am in the middle of another big period of travels.  Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Rumania, Italy, and not much time to enjoy this autumn at home taking advantage of all the bottles lying in my cellar to drink in front of the roaring fire in one of this humid and chilly November night. But should I really complain? Of course not, I am living so many beautiful experiences, meeting a huge amount of interesting people with so many different cultures and of course, why not, trying and sampling some fantastic and interesting new dishes.

In this moment I am in Firenze, where we are keeping finding unbelievable restaurant and trying the old ones that we already loved. Last night we went again at Osteria Io Personale (see my previous post) and experienced again a fantastic culinary delight. Today for lunch we found another hidden gem, Il Teatro del Sale close to the amazing mercato di Sant'Ambrogio where you can find amazing fruit and vegetables and what your foodie mind always dreamed about. Teatro del Sale is part of a group of restaurant all in this corner of the city and it is connected to the restaurant Cibreo one of the most renowned restaurant in Florence. It's a private circle (but is pretty easy to become a member) and it works as a restaurant but in the night there are all kind of events that you can enjoying while having dinner (music, theatre etc.) and it works as well as a gastronomy shop with some incredible quality products in offer. I found here a wine that I was looking for that I had almost no hope to find especially in Italy. It is produced by a guy from Florence that moved to France in the area of Banyuls, deep south of France, closed to the border with Spain. Check out the website : http://www.vinyerdelaruca.com/
This wine is produced in only 1000 bottles in a complete byodinamic environment with maniacal precision to details. Also the bottle shape is very different and fascinating and apparently all bottles are handmade by a friend of him leaving next to his vineyards. It is not cheap but I am so glad that now one bottle is going to be in the cellar. I can see this wine to be the best companion to an amazing chocolate dessert.
Coming back to our lunch the concept in this restaurant is pretty casual but the quality of food is really top. There are a number of antipasti that you can take from a large buffet, all with seasonal vegetables and freshly made. We had some creamy and lovely polenta, a broccoli pure' , a lentils salad, some beets and potatoes salad and a few others. Also all the bread and focaccia that you can choose are handmade and so flavourful. From the open kitchen the chefs are screaming which plate will come out next and when the plate is out all the people go queue (shortly) for their portion. Today we also had some lovely paccheri with tomato sauce and an incredible grilled chicken with roasted potatoes. Really a simple but amazing lunch.


Our restaurant in Georgia


Just coming back a few days ago, precisely to last Sunday I also want to spend a few words about my Georgian adventure. Considering I was with a colleague in Trabzon for work we decided to head to Georgia, that is only two hours away, precisely to the city of Batumi, a seaside resort on the black sea. Trip was lovely all along the coast and it is incredible to see how simply and poorly some people can leave. Once we pass the border you can still feel that we are in an ex Russian republic and some ruins of ex Russian Army camp can still be seen. The city is weird, mixing new and incredibly modern building to some ex Soviet Union style huge building almost falling apart. Foodwise the experience was interesting. We went to one of the nicer restaurant in town and food was, I would say, pretty good. Some differenf little fish as appetizer and a very nice Batumi Kebab as main dish, consisting in very tasting meat mixed with some beautiful yogurt. The thing I loved more of the whole lunch experience then was the bread. Just ouf from the oven, warm and absolutely delightful. This world is full of surprise and that's why is so exciting (even if a bit tiring) travelling so much.

Lovely Georgian bread

Osteria IO Personale - Firenze

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:

• 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!

A delightful weekend

Finally a weekend in our sweet Lausanne home....it is raining and cold, the perfect weather to find the excuse to stay in and spend the weekend cooking and enjoying the coziness of our apartment. And of course the perfect time to go down to my beloved cellar and pull out some nice bottles to go with what we are cooking.

So starting with Friday....we began with an apero and a lovely prosecco from Casa Coste Piane Colfondo (prosecco with yeast at the bottom of the bottle and not filtered, as it was produced 30 years ago). Very different from normal prosecco and primarily for the lovers of new experiences, but generally everybody loves it.

After that with a lovely risotto with peas and goat cheese we drank a fruity and incredibly easy to drink Pinot Noir from our area of Switzerland. The producer is Domaine Le Satyre from Begnins and the wine was a Pinot Noir Le Satyre 2010. Really lovely wine from this micro-producer and to top it off, a very cool bottle.

To close our meal in style we had a pear tarte tatin with an amazing Moscato d'Asti d'Autunno 2010 from Saracco. It was probably one of the best Moscato I have ever drunk, if not the best.

And now let's pass to Saturday. Here from good that it was on Friday I will pass to amazing as an objective to describe our dinner. Considering we wanted to do something special and we are now in full hunting season we decide to go for some game. I prepared a fantastic stroganoff of venison with wild mushrooms. Quite simple to prepare but what a delight for the palate. To accompany such a treat we drank a Bandol Longue Garde Cuvee' Jeremy 1998 from Domaine Le Galantin. All of this in front of the fireplace....what could you desire more from life. The wine was complex and full of amazing flavours and smell, it paired incredibly well with the venison. I bought this wine this summer in Bandol for a ridiculous price.....such a fantastic find!!!

Can it get better than this???  Probably not but it can get closer.....on Sunday evening we made some lovely fishcakes....we mixed tuna, salmon and cod and we made this kind of fish patty...they were absolutely fantastic. Even better was the wine we open to accompany the fish cakes. A Cinqueterre 2005 from Azienda Agricola Buranco.  This wine is produced in a very limited number of bottles in one of the most stunning areas of Italy: Cinqueterre. Here the viticulture is really heroic, super steep hills falling into the sea and the work of the farmer here is extreme. All is done by hands, no space for any help of mechanic tools. The result is a wine of fantastic pureness, with an incredible golden color that screamed that is coming from the sea. No need to say it was a great pair with our fishcakes.

What a lovely gastro-weekend....and tomorrow heading back to Toscana for more adventures....we'll keep you posted.

Ristoranti nr. 5 - Toscana

And now to probably one of the best dinners with no doubts in the best setting we have been in the last year, if not ever.

So first of all where this took place? In an amazing boutique hotel/country house called "La Petraia" close to the village of Radda in Chianti, but really difficult to reach. The road that arrives here is not paved and is windy and steep, so if you are going with your car be ready for some adventure. But when you arrive paradise is in front of you, pictures are clearly showing which unforgettable spot is this one. The estate is run by a Canadian couple who moved here a few years ago and completely felt in love with this place. Most of the products you can eat are farmed by them and also some of the meat comes from the animals that are grown on the farm (chicken, cinta senese etc.).

The excuse to come here was given by one of the birthday present I made to V last year. The present was two tickets to take part to this event called "Outstanding in the Field" an itinerant gastronomic tour that touches different places in the United States and Canada, and that this year includes some dinners in Europe including this one at La Petraia. You can look at the website for more information. What I can say is that we had really big expectations from this event and these have been surpassed greatly.

The event started at 3 pm and we were greeted by the staff of Outstanding in the Field with a lovely glass of sparkling wine and with some crostini, prosciutto di cinta senese cut on the spot and some other lovely snacks. The apero continued for a couple of hour on which we also had a short tour of the farm before being transferred to the incredible and stunning setting in the middle of the vineyards where the dinner took place. Here are some pictures, I guess no further comments are needed as the beauty speaks for itself.

Here as well you can see the amazing menu we had during the event. A special mention to the meat coming from Dario Cecchini, the famous butcher of Panzano in Chianti and a kind of crazy gastro-star of the area and with foodies. He also served the so-called Sushi del Chianti - it was an absolutely amazing dish and so unexpected.

The greatest thing of the whole event was the pleasure of sharing with lots of people coming from all over the world an amazing dining experience in one of the most incredible spot you can imagine. When the sun start to set the mix of colors that spread on the hills and painted the vineyard with yellow and pink was pure magic.

It was a moment of perfect peace and it was a night of great fun. For sure we want to be back to La Petraia to experience this place in a normal period but as well for sure we want to experience again another event with Outstanding in the Field. If this is their standard of working the word outstanding fits absolutely with what they do and what they are organizing all around the globe....in one word: BRAVISSIMI!

Fiorentina Cooking 

Sunset at La Petraia 

Ristoranti nr. 4 - Langhe

And now let's talk about one of our favorite areas in Italy, the Langhe.

Wine cellar at Villa Tiboldi

This time we spent our weekend at Villa Tiboldi a lovely house immersed in the vineyards above Canale d'Alba. Certainly an amazing place to stay, with one of the best pools and settings we have ever experienced. Great wine selection at very reasonable prices, not only from the producer that is part of Villa Tiboldi (Malvira') but also from other Piedmont producers. One downside was that the food was not exceptional especially compared to the options that you can find in this area. During our two dinners here we had the chance to drink an amazing Barolo Pajana 2000 from Domenico Clerico and two super Nebbiolo: one from the area (Produttori del Barbaresco Riserva Ovello 2004) and one from a less known region in the north of Piedmont called Gattinara (Gattinara San Francesco 2000 from Antoniolo). Really good and again super QPR.

The two culinary highlights of the weekend were two very different places in style and offers: for Saturday lunch we headed to our all-time favorite agriturismo in Italy: Cascina Abate. We love this place for his simplicity, for the passion that the owner and his family put on what he does and for the amazing and simple food you can have. A number of antipasti (including a Tartare of Fassone Beef and an Insalata Russa to die for), two primi (Tajarin con Ragu' and amazing Ravioli del Plin), a secondo (if you are lucky you can experience a 22 hours slow cooked pork (in a wooden oven) that melts in your mouth) and some desserts. It is just lovely to spend a few hours here and enjoy the food, the talk and the super relaxing atmosphere you can find here.

And on Sunday again one of our preferred restaurant in the heart of Barbaresco just next door to Cantine Gaja one of the most famous and worldwide appreciated Italian wine producer: Antine'. The food here is incredible, well presented and the atmosphere is formal but you can still feel very relaxed. Considering both of us will have a long drive ahead we were not able to indulge as much as we would like, but we were still able to have one antipasto and one primo each.

tartare at Antine' 

For V, Girello di Vitello al Punto Rosa con Salsa Tonnata Tradizionale, a revised and modern version of the vitello tonnato and absolutely amazing; for me, a Battuta di Vitello Piemontese con Uovo di Quaglia Fritto, a tartare of exceptional quality with a fried quail egg on top.

As primo we get for V some maccheroni handmade with a light carbonara sauce (fantastici) and for me agnolotti del plin filled with potato and porcini mushroom with thyme butter.

The wine list in this restaurant is huge and you can choose between an enormous variety of Barolo and Barbaresco. For this time considering the drive ahead we had to go low profile choosing a lovely Barbera d'Alba Superiore Gallina 2006 from Ugo Lequio wine that accompanied greatly our meal.

The quality of this restaurant leaves us always speechless, we would love to come back to Langhe all the time not only for the quality of the food and the wines you can have but also for the peaceful and lovely feeling you can experience when you are for a few days in these hills and vineyards.