Here now is a report on our last meal out in Rome. For lunch on our last full day we’d taken the bus out to Testaccio and eaten at the Mercato Testaccio. In the evening we once again traveled out of the main tourist center for dinner—this time by the metro to the Ostiense neighbourhood, for dinner at Trattoria Pennestri. Like Santo Palato, this is a relatively new restaurant, helmed by an Italian-Danish chef (with the last name Pennestri) and an Argentinean wine director. They are known for their mix of classic and updated Roman cuisine and have received a fair bit of recognition in the press. We were very much looking forward to the meal. Well, I can report that the food was indeed excellent; alas, the meal was marred more than a little by another factor. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Italian Cuisine
Mercato Testaccio (Rome, June 2023)
Lunch on our third full day in Rome also featured pizza but it was not eaten at a restaurant; it also featured more than pizza. We took the bus out of of the tourist center to check out and eat at Mercato Testaccio. As the name indicates, Mercato Testaccio (or Mercato di Testaccio, if you want to be more grammatically correct—though the market’s own signage clearly doesn’t) is located in the Testaccio neighbourhood. Unlike a market like Campo di Fiori—where we had fruit juice earlier in the day—Mercato Testaccio is located indoors, in a modern building that lets in a lot of air and light. It is filled with stalls (or boxes in the market’s parlance) that range from clothing and shoe stores to butchers and fishmongers to fruit and veg sellers to a range of food purveyors. In the center is a seating area where most people vie for tables to eat. In other words, it’s along the lines of similar markets found in many large cities around the world, including Minneapolis’ own Midtown Global Market. Continue reading
Trattoria Monti (Rome, June 2023)
Two things to note about Trattoria Monti to start: first, despite the name, the restaurant is located not in the Monti neighbourhood but in the adjoining Esquilino. The location was a big plus for us, as our flat was also in Esquilino, just 7-8 minutes walk away. Esquilino is an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood and on AirBnB reviews and elsewhere you are likely to come across not-very-coded references to it being or feeling “unsafe” for this reason. We found it to be no such thing. We very much enjoyed being in the midst of the Bangladeshi, Chinese, Korean and African populations of the area and getting a sense of a newer, multicultural Rome; in fact, I purchased excellent mangoes from a Bangladeshi store and spoke more Bengali in four days in Rome than I have in many years in Minnesota! And the neighbourhood itself we found pleasant both during the day and after dark. We didn’t have a single sketchy encounter walking back from the metro station in the late evenings; and as we walked back after dinner at Trattoria Monti much of the neighbourhood was watching a movie together in the central Piazza Vittorio Emanuelle II. So much for unsafe. Continue reading
Pizzarium (Rome, June 2023)
If you ask people with a decent knowledge of Rome’s food scene for recommendations of places to eat pizza, odds are good that Pizzarium will pop up on the top of everyone’s list. Unlike at Emma—where we ate the previous day—they do not do whole pizzas with thin, crisp crusts. Their specialty is pizza al taglio (or pizza by the slice), on thick bready crusts, cut and served in rectangles or squares of a size of your choosing and priced by weight. This is basically the model followed by a place like Mama’s Too in New York. The difference here is that at Pizzarium the experience is less hectic—despite the place being even more crowded—and the staff are patient and not at all unpleasant. And, oh yes, the pizza is a lot better. Continue reading
Emma (Rome, June 2023)
On our first full day in Rome we had an excellent lunch in the middle of a very hot day of hardcore touristing: the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Forum etc.. It was hot, hot, hot in Rome, with blazing sun and no little humidity, and what had seemed like an easy 15 minute walk from the Forum to Emma turned into a bit of a trial. We arrived hot, sweaty and cranky but unlike a number of fellow tourists waiting at the door, at least we had a reservation. Alas, this reservation—made weeks before—didn’t get us an indoor table under the air conditioning. We were shunted instead to an outdoor table—covered seating, yes, but still very hot, and with the sun advancing on our table, not the most comfortable situation as the meal went on. The food, however, was very good indeed. Herewith, the details. Continue reading
Santo Palato (Rome, June 2023)
My fourth restaurant report from our trip to Italy is of our first meal in Rome, at Santo Palato, a small, relatively new trattoria that serves up slightly tweaked versions of classic Roman dishes. Now this last part I am not really equipped to judge: I don’t know very much about Roman cuisine and so cannot tell you in what ways exactly the dishes we ate riffed on classic preparations (if all even did). What I can tell you is that this was a fantastic meal, perhaps the family’s consensus pick for the best formal meal of the trip; it was certainly my favourite meal of the trip. It almost got derailed on the way to the restaurant though… Continue reading
Mimi alla Ferrovia (Naples, June 2023)
We are in Padua with only a few days remaining in our Italian itinerary. I am very far behind on the meal reports, which may take the rest of my life to get caught up on. Here, for example, is only my third report, covering our very first meal in Italy, eaten just an hour after our arrival in Naples. We took a cab to our AirBnB flat, got checked in and then headed for Mimi alla Ferrovia. This is a Neapolitan institution. The name comes from the fact that the original proprietor’s nickname was Mimi and the restaurant is located by the train station (ferrovia). I got to it as well via Katie Parla’s website—she recommends it as a less informal place to get classic Neapolitan cooking. It’s not that I was looking for more formal places but the fact that I could make an online booking and be assured of dinner without a wait after arrival was very attractive. Our flat was also just about a 15 minute walk away. Our AirBnB host, however, dissuaded us from walking there—the area by the station can apparently be sketchy after dark—and put us in a cab. On our way back the restaurant likewise advised against walking back and called us a cab. Between cabs, the meal itself was rather good. Continue reading
Starita (Naples, June 2023)
My first restaurant report from this ongoing Italy trip was of excellent pizza eaten in Naples (at Attilio). I posted that as we were leaving Rome more than a week ago. My second restaurant report from this ongoing Italy trip is also of excellent pizza eaten in Naples—indeed on the very same day as that first round of excellent pizza. But now I am more than one city behind. From Rome we went to Florence and from Florence to the Tuscan countryside. (We ate pizza in Rome and Florence as well, by the way, though not in the Tuscan countryside.) We are leaving the Tuscan countryside tomorrow for Padua and the wifi has finally perked up enough for me to be able to upload a lot of pictures. And so here you are. What a lovely birthday present for America. You’re welcome. Continue reading
Pizzeria da Attilio (Naples, 2023)
We are currently in Italy and will be here a little while longer. As I type we are getting set to leave Rome for Florence. But we started our trip in Naples. Which is also where we started our over-eating. This lunch at Pizzeria da Attilio was not our first meal in Naples (that was dinner at Mimi alla Ferrovia the previous evening) but it seems right to begin an account of eating in Naples with pizza. And so.
As you would expect, there is a lot of good pizza to be had in Naples and probably almost as many opinions on which the best places to eat pizza in Naples as there are pizza-eating people in Naples. We were staying on Via Duomo, very close to the two most famous places: Antica Pizzeria da Michele and Gino e Toto Sorbillo. We did not, however, eat at either of them. This was largely because both are so popular that you have to wait a really long time to get a table—and if there’s something we don’t like to do when traveling with the kids, it’s waiting at restaurants. But we couldn’t have eaten at both anyway, as one of our two pizza meal slots in the city was spoken for by Attilio. Continue reading
Hyacinth III (St. Paul, MN)
I ate at Hyacinth twice in 2019. The first time with the missus and some friends; the second time with colleagues. I enjoyed both meals even as I felt that its charms were really those of a neighbourhood restaurant. Nonetheless, if the pandemic had not intervened we would probably have gone back at least once in the last couple of years. And this past weekend we finally did, taking our boys out with us once again to an adult dinner experience. Italian food is the easiest option with them (see oiur previous outings to Terzo, Luci Ancora, Bar La Grassa, 112 Eatery and Mucci’s) and Hyacinth’s current menu seemed like it would suit them just fine. I’m glad to report that this did indeed prove to be the case: they enjoyed their dinner a lot. Their parents liked it too but thought it was a little uneven and we were really not convinced by the meal’s value proposition. Continue reading
Terzo (Minneapolis)
Those of you who are misguided enough to follow this blog closely know that this year the missus and I began taking the boys out to an adult dinner with us once a month or so. Our ports of call so far have included Luci Ancora, Bar La Grassa, Myriel, 112 Eatery and Mucci’s. Those who also know these restaurants can also tell that with the exception of Myriel they have in common either a full-on Italian focus or—in the case of 112 Eatery—a menu that features a number of pastas and grilled meats. These, you see, are the best bets for dining out with our boys—they’re probably more adventurous as eaters than most of their peers but we’re not paying for them to spurn 75% of what’s on their plates at places like Alma or Tenant or Spoon & Stable. But Italian food is easy. Accordingly, we’re in the process of doing a slow-motion tour of the more popular/better-regarded Italian places in the Twin Cities. This month saw us make a stop at Terzo, the most formal of the outposts of the Broders mini-empire at the intersection of 50th St. and Penn Ave. in South Minneapolis. Herewith, the details. Continue reading
Luci Ancora (St. Paul, MN)
I have been told on occasion that for someone who reviews a lot of restaurants in the Twin Cities I have a major blind spot when it comes to older restaurants. I suppose this is true, especially at the high end. With very few exceptions, most of the high-end restaurants I’ve reviewed either opened after we got to Minnesota in 2007 or not so very much before. I’m not really sure why that is—I suppose I am guilty as much as anyone else of following the pr-driven newer places that get more attention online. Well, in an attempt to begin to redress that gap we had dinner recently at Luci Ancora, a venerable St. Paul institution for Italian food. Continue reading
Bar La Grassa, 2022 (Minneapolis)
Earlier this year we began taking our boys out to the occasional formal dinner with us. They’ve been enjoying these meals greatly. While our dinner at Myriel—with their practice of not posting menus—was a chancy shot in the dark, the other two dinners—at Mucci’s Italian and 112 Eatery—were pretty solid bets as both are places with a number of pasta options (as it happens, they enjoyed Myriel as well). Thus when the younger boy expressed an interest in eating a fancy dinner for his birthday in July we decided to go back to a place with many, many pasta options: Bar La Grassa. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Estelle (St. Paul)
Estelle opened a couple of years ago in St. Paul in whatever that neighbourhood right by Macalester is called. It got rave reviews from the local press and despite my suspicion of the local press—whose excitement often seems to me to have as much to do with the idea of a place as with the food itself—we’d planned to eat there in early 2020. But you know what happened next. I don’t know if they had a takeout pivot through the pandemic but with the exception of one occasion with Tenant our pandemic takeout meals skipped the high end. But we finally made the return to dining-in last month (yes, at Tenant) and Estelle was the next place we made reservations at. We were joined by friends we eat out with regularly—and with whom we ate a number of takeout meals in the last year and a half. This is how it went. Continue reading
Hyacinth II
We first ate at Hyacinth in March. That was a nice dinner but nothing so very special; and on our drive south all four of us agreed that if we lived in St. Paul we’d eat there every once in a while but that it wasn’t anything we needed to drive an hour each way and pay a sitter a lot of money for. Nonetheless, I had wanted to go back in the summer or early fall to see what their kitchen would do with the best of Minnesota produce but, alas, it wasn’t to be. But I did get a chance to go back earlier this month with friends from work (the missus wasn’t along). As it happens, I liked this meal more than our first. Here are the details. Continue reading
Rezdora (New York, August 2019)
Back to New York. After a run of informal or relatively casual meals, here’s the first fancy’ish restaurant for which we hired a sitter and abandoned the boys to go eat at. (By the way, Manhattan babysitting rates: what the fuck?)
When I was planning our New York eating I asked the brain trust at Mouthfuls to recommend a couple of “fine dining” (whatever that means these days) places in Manhattan where two people could eat well and get out for about $250 all-in. This sounds like a tough proposition in Manhattan but bear in mind that the missus never has more than one drink and I rarely have more than two. A few names came up but after filtering for “sounds interesting to us” and “not difficult to get a table” only two remained: Rezdora and Crown Shy. We ate at both on consecutive nights. Here first is the Rezdora write-up. Continue reading
Hyacinth (St. Paul, MN)
Hyacinth opened on Grand Avenue in St. Paul last autumn and quickly made a name for itself. This was partly/largely—depending on your point of view—because the owner/executive chef had previously worked in the kitchens at Corton and Franny’s in New York. Twin Cities food writers, you see, manage to both scoff at coastal inattention to/disdain for our local fine dining scene and fall over themselves with excitement when a chef from New York comes (back) to town or a local chef goes on to great success in San Francisco. Such are the contradictions of being a food critic in a third-tier food town. Continue reading