I was all over the map in 2023. Literally so. In January and early February, the whole family was in India, spending time in Delhi, Agra and Goa. In March, I went off to Seoul for a week. In late-April I was in New York and New Jersey for a few days. In the summer we all went off to Europe for an extended stint, spending three weeks on vacation in Italy and another six on work in Ireland. And then, finally, in October, the missus and I took a weekend trip to New York. That’s a lot of traveling and a lot of restaurant meals. And, of course, we ate out at our usual once-a-week clip while in the Twin Cities metro. So my selections for my best restaurant meals of 2023 draw from a wider geography than usual (the really unusual thing is that we did not get to Los Angeles at all this year). I’ve divided the list up first to separate more expensive/formal places from less expensive/more casual places but the top five list draws from both categories. A few more Twin Cities-centered lists follow after that. Continue reading
Category Archives: Italy
La Ciccia (Milan, July 2023)
Here now finally is my last restaurant report from our trip to Italy this summer (see here for all the others). It comes just a week short of five months since we left Italy for Ireland. Our last port of call in Italy was Milan, where we stayed two nights and one full day. The purpose of this short stay was two-fold: to see one of my oldest, dearest friends, who lives an hour outside Milan, and for the family to see the Last Supper and a few others of Milan tourism’s greatest hits. Food was not at the top of the agenda; not because Milan does not have good food but because after three weeks of moving, the priority was to eat at places as close to where we were staying as possible (you may recall that we ate Chinese food after arrival). Our friends accordingly chose La Ciccia, situated just about a six minute walk from our flat, for our dinner on the first night. This turned out to be a very good thing as the older boy began to feel unwell as we approached dinner time. The missus stayed in with him while the younger boy and I walked over. The next day he was better but still not up to eating out (he also missed the day’s touring); and so we left him alone for an hour and a half while the three of us walked back to La Ciccia for another meal. Here’s how they both went. Continue reading
Lanzhou Ramen (Milan, July 2023)
Four and a half months after our trip to Italy ended, I am finally almost done with my meal reports. The last leg of our stay was in Milan. We were there for two nights and a day, partly to see the Last Supper and partly to meet up with one of my oldest, dearest friends who lives an hour outside Milan. She and her husband drove over for dinner in the evening. That meal featured Italian food. For lunch, however, we ate our first non-Italian meal in three weeks. We hadn’t really planned this. We’d chosen our AirBnB on the basis of proximity to the train station and after arrival from Padua we didn’t have the energy to go very far for lunch or the appetite for anything very filling. Google indicated that we were in a neighbourhood that featured a number of Asian restaurants and we decided to go eat a light lunch of noodle soup and dumplings at a place called Lanzhou Ramen, about 7 minutes walk from our flat. We arrived to find a small but attractive restaurant. Here’s how the meal went. Continue reading
Cicchetti at Cantine del Vino gia Schiavi (Venice, July 2023)
Alright, let’s get back to the Italy meal reports. I only have three more to go, I think. Two from Milan and this last one from Venice, which features our lunch on the day of our second visit to the city. As with our other lunches in Venice and Padua, this was a meal centered on cicchetti. On our first visit to Venice we’d stopped at a random place (Bacaro Risorto) and had a pretty good lunch. The next day we ate even better cicchetti at Frascoli in Padua, a restaurant that had been recommended. Our third cicchetti outing was at a very well-known place in Venice, Cantine del Vino gia Schiavi. In keeping with the trajectory of the meals, this was easily the best of three. Here is a quick look at what we ate. Continue reading
Cicchetti at Frascoli (Padua, July 2023)
Back to Italy and to Padua. We’d spent most of our first full day in Padua not in that city but in Venice, taking the train out in the morning and back in the evening. We ate cicchetti for lunch in Venice on that day (and dinner back in Padua at Ai Scarponi). We ate cicchetti again for lunch on our second day which we actually spent entirely in Padua. In the morning we walked in the rain to the Scrovegni Chapel where we took in the famous Giotto frescoes. It’s a pretty regimented experience (make sure to arrive at the time printed on your reservation) but it’s quite something to behold. You’d think that well into our third week in Italy we’d be frescoed out, but no. After the chapel we walked over to Frascoli, a popular bacaro, for lunch. It’s a much larger establishment than Bacaro Risorto, and they serve a larger menu beyond cicchetti. It’s the cicchetti we focused on though. Continue reading
Osteria Ai Scarponi (Padua, July 2023)
Back to Italy, back to Padua. We ate dinner at Enotavola Pino on our first night in Padua. We enjoyed that meal so much that we were tempted to go back right away. However, we had reservations on the second night at Osteria Ai Scarponi, which had been recommended on Twitter by a resident of Padua. And so after getting back from a day in Venice and resting for a few hours we set out for Ai Scarponi. We arrived right after they opened at 7.30 to find a small restaurant with a narrow dining room. At first we thought our reservation might not have been necessary after all but it filled up in very short order. As far as we could make out the clientele was mostly locals and it had the feel of a neighbourhood restaurant. We had a table right by the kitchen, at the end of the dining room, and quickly got down to business. Continue reading
Cicchetti at Bacaro Risorto (Venice, July 2023)
Back to northern Italy, for the first of two reports from Venice. We did not actually stay in Venice. There were not very many apartments available in our price range, and I didn’t have the best feeling about the listings I saw. Accordingly, we stayed in Padua and took two day trips to Venice. It’s just 30 minutes by train and very easy to do—it was a short walk from our flat to catch a bus for a short ride to the station. Padua itself is very much worth a visit—the Giotto frescoes at Scrovegni Chapel are jaw-dropping and well worth the hassle for the limited time you’re allowed to spend there, but there’s more to do in the city. And, of course, we ate a couple of very good dinners in Padua (I’ve reported on the first so far). Our first full day in the region, however, was spent in Venice. We did some of the tourist greatest hits and after a visit to St. Mark’s Basilica we stopped randomly at a bacaro in the vicinity for a light ciccheti-based lunch. Why so uncharacteristically restrained? Well, we’d eaten a big breakfast at a cafe after arrival in Venice in the morning, and we had a booking in Padua for early’ish dinner—and also, it must be said, there was a lot of gelato to eat as well during the course of the day. Our lunch at Bacaro Risorto may thus have been light, but it was very good. Continue reading
Enotavola (Padua, July 2023)
And so to the last leg of our Italian vacation, which took us from San Gimignano back to Florence to drop off our rental car and then by train to Padua. We had originally hoped that we’d return to Mercato Centrale again for lunch after dropping our bags off at the train station. But the bag drop was a bit of a disaster and so we ate (more than acceptable) sandwiches at the station and waited patiently for our train. We also hadn’t made dinner plans in Padua—the idea having been that we’d be gorged from lunch and would just pick up some salumi and bread from a market. But a lighter lunch meant we were now in the mood for proper dinner. I did a spot of googling and lighted on Enotavola (or Enotavola Pino, as they’re referred to in most places other than their own website and restaurant signage). A very fortuitous find as this was one of our favourite meals on the whole Italy trip. Continue reading
Osteria Cantine Bernardini (Lucca, July 2023)
Here is a report on our last lunch on our Tuscan sojourn. It was eaten in Lucca, a town we had no plans to visit pretty much till we went there. We’d thought our last full day in Tuscany would be spent in either Montepulciano or Montalcino, or both. But in the morning we decided against driving to towns whose principal attractions include wine and drove north instead. We weren’t sure what we would make of Lucca and so had no firm plans. We figured if it wasn’t our favourite, we would cut and run to some other small town nearby. As it happens, we loved Lucca and stayed there the entire day. Which meant we needed to figure out a spot for lunch. 5-10 minutes of googling led me to Osteria Cantine Bernardini. The reviews I read indicated an easy going place that serves updated takes on Tuscan classics and we decided to give it a go. And I’m very glad we did: this was hands-down our best meal in Tuscany and among our best meals of the trip as a whole. Continue reading
Ristorante Peruca (San Gimignano, July 2023)
In my report yesterday on our lunch in Volterra, I made reference to a fancy meal we ate accidentally in San Gimignano the next day. Here now is a report on that meal. Let me begin by explaining what I mean by an accidentally eaten meal. It was a scorcher of a day in Tuscany and we figured we’d spend a good chunk of the afternoon in the pool at the agriturismo we were staying at outside San Gimignano. And so we decided not to go too far on this day. As we’d not seen very much of San Gimignano on our first outing we decided to spend a little more time there and then head to the town of Certaldo, also not very far from us but in the other direction. We figured we’d spend the morning in San Gimignano and then head to Certaldo for lunch. And then we spent so much time ambling around San Gimignano that it made more sense to eat there. But where? The sun was high in the sky and it was hot. The owner of the agriturismo had recommended one spot but it did not have air conditioning and the outdoor tables were in the sun. “You can come back in 30 minutes”, the manager said, “the sun will move across the street”. With that in our back pocket we ambled some more and then found ourselves outside another place the agriturismo had recommended. They had air conditioning and available tables and so we went in and sat down. Continue reading
Il Giardinetto (Volterra, July 2023)
We visited Volterra on our third day in Tuscany and here is an account of the lunch we ate there. You may be wondering where the report on lunch on our second day is (we ate at Magnino in San Gimignano on the first day). Well, we visited Siena on the second day. It was a lovely day but punctuated by heavy bursts of rain. And so we ended up eating panini on the run at an informal museum cafe counter in the Piazza del Duomo. Our Siena outing was to influence our Volterra outing as well. Rain was once again in the forecast but after a prolonged drama with finding parking lots with spaces we contrived to leave our rain jackets in the car. We discovered we’d done so only after the steep ascent to the town proper. And so when it came time to think of lunch, we decided to find a place within very close reach of the Etruscan Museum, which was to be our major port of call, culture-wise. I had done no research into the Volterra dining scene and so we picked a place with covered outdoor seating: Il Giardinetto. Lunch was nothing special but it was also not bad at all. Continue reading
Magnino (San Gimignano, June 2023)
Okay, back to Italy. So far, I have chronicled our meals in the first three cities we visited: Naples, Rome and Florence. From Florence we headed to the small towns of Tuscany. We rented a car from the airport and drove it to an agriturismo just outside San Gimignano, where we spent five nights (I highly recommend the very reasonably-priced Podere Le Grotte). From there we visited a different Tuscan town every day. We’d have a light breakfast in, head out for the day and then come back in the early evening and eat dinner in (cooked by me with ingredients we bought while out). Unsurprisingly, San Gimignano was our port of call on our first day. We did the short drive pretty much right after dropping our bags off, with our eyes first on a late lunch. Not that I’d done so very much research for the places we ate at in the big cities, but I’d really done no research for the Tuscan towns. Our selection process on this first visit to San Gimignano (we went back one more time) was therefore based on three factors: 1) was it close to where we entered the town? 2) was the kitchen open; 2) was the interior air-conditioned? At the intersection of positive answers to all these questions was a place named Magnino, and it was there we ate. And a good meal it was too. Continue reading
La Divina Pizza (Florence, June 2023)
Here, finally, is my last report from Florence. We are now close to the end of June, travel-wise. As you may recall, we actually spent most of our last full day in Florence in Pisa. We picked up sandwiches from the Mercato Sant’Ambrogio that morning and took them with us for a casual picnic lunch. Dinner after we got back was casual as well: we picked up pizza from La Divina on Borgo Allegri. Why didn’t we eat in? Well, it was hot, we were tired and La Divina being located only about 50 feet from our door meant the pizza took only a slightly longer trip to our dining table than it would have to a table outside the restaurant. How was it? Read on. Continue reading
Mercato Sant’Ambrogio (Florence, June 2023)
We spent most of our last full day in Florence not in Florence but in Pisa. It’s a fairly quick train ride and we decided to use up on one of our days in Florence on that visit and keep our upcoming days in the Tuscan countryside a little more relaxed. A good decision, on the whole, even if it meant punting on a few museum visits in Florence. Truth be told, with the kids, there’s a limit to how much museuming we can do on a trip anyway, and the previous day negotiating the crowds at the Uffizi and the Accademia had pretty much exhausted the adults’ energies and patience as well.
What was definitely a good decision was picking up a picnic lunch before departure for Pisa at the Mercato Sant’Ambrogio. Continue reading
Adagio (Florence, June 2023)
Here is an account of our last formal meal in Florence. We spent the next day in Pisa, packing a lunch of sandwiches from the excellent Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio near our flat. And for dinner that last night we did takeaway pizza. I’ll have reports on both the market and the pizza later but here now is a look at our dinner at Adagio the evening prior.
Though not quite as close as Ghianda or our pizza destination the next evening, Adagio was located only a very short walk from our flat—something we appreciated after a long day of museuming. We also appreciated that it was quite well-cooled (as you know, it’s been a very hot summer in Italy). It’s an interestingly shaped restaurant, with tables set in a narrow hallway as you enter and about halfway through. At the very end it opens into a wider, regulation dining room. We were seated at one of the tables about halfway through, with lots of natural light streaming in through the skylights. The restaurant was fairly empty when we arrived, not too long after they opened, but filled up steadily as the evening went on. Having only eaten sandwiches for lunch (at Mercato Centrale), we were hungry and accordingly quickly got down to business. Continue reading
Shopping at Mercato Centrale
Last week I posted about our lunch at Mercato Centrale in Florence. That report was focused on the food options at the large market: some of which are located downstairs—where we ate—and most of which are located upstairs. Of course, Mercato Centrale is not just a food hall. The food counters, and especially the formal food hall upstairs, may be what attracts the tourists, but the ground floor houses a large and active market. At the front of the market are the salumi and cheese and pasta and dry goods sellers; but if you go a bit further in you’ll find the butchers, the fishmongers and the fruit and vegetable sellers. We wandered the market for a while after eating our sandwiches and pizza and here now is a look at that part of Mercato Centrale. Continue reading
Eating at Mercato Centrale (Florence, June 2023)
Our second full day in Florence involved art and crowds, usually at the same time. We visited the Uffizi galleries in the morning and the Accademia (which houses Michelangelo’s David) in the afternoon. It was quite a nightmare getting into the latter (though well worth it once inside). But I digress: this is about our lunch, which was eaten in between those visits at another very popular tourist destination in Florence: Il Mercato Centrale. It is located in the historic center, within easy walking distance from most of the sights you are likely to be visiting. Well, in late June the walk was made less easy by the heat, but the market itself is indoors once you get there—walking through rows of covered outdoor stalls selling various knick knacks—and reasonably well cooled. There are two levels. The ground floor is where the market proper is along with a few food counters. The main food section is upstairs and it was a zoo when we visited (and I assume this is usually the case in high tourist season). Accordingly, we ate downstairs instead, everything we wanted to eat being available there. What did we want to eat? Read on. Continue reading
La Cucina del Ghianda (Florence, June 2023)
It’s been almost ten days since I posted a report on our first meal out in Florence (at Acquacotta). I’d hoped to get this report on the second up last week but it’s been a hectic week on my program in Ireland, as we travelled from Dublin to Belfast for a week. Now that I’m almost set to return to Dublin (where the family have been chilling), here is that second report. It is of dinner at La Cucina del Ghianda, which was located mere steps from our flat on via dell’Agnollo. Not only was it conveniently located, it also came highly recommended from a few directions. And so I’d made a reservation (via Google) as soon as our dates were set, and we were very much looking forward to eating there. I am glad to report that it indeed turned out to be a very good meal. Continue reading