And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: lunch at Osteria Francescana, the only three-Michelin-star restaurant I've ever been to, and currently the third best restaurant in the world. (I know.) And also the most expensive meal of our collective lives. Yep, Nanda, René, Mike, and I planned a whole trip just so we could eat there. (And it conveniently came with a few days in Modena, the birthplace of balsamic vinegar and home to loads of ridiculously good pasta.) Honestly, we didn't do much there other than meander around and eat, so here are photos of both. And entirely too many descriptions of food. You've been warned.
On the way down to Modena, which is about a five-hour drive, we stopped for a night in Bergamo, which, as you attentive readers may remember, is a lovely, charming city. However, as we really only arrived there around 8:00, we had just enough time to find dinner in the lower city, and despite the sheer size of the menu and the neon outside of the restaurant, we had a nice meal at La Bruschetta. Naturally, the bruschetta we started with was spectacularly good, and came topped with marinated tomatoes and mozzarella. I had a plate of pasta made with the local salami (whose name, of course, I cannot remember) and rucola in sage butter, and Mike had a plate of casoncelli, and then we split a pizza topped with taleggio and more of that salami (yesssss). Naturally, this being Lombardy and it being the summertime, we ordered a bottle of Lambrusco* (half as a joke), and then discovered how just awesome it is for drinking in hot weather. And then the waitress took a shine to us and kept bringing limoncello to the table. Turned out to be quite a fun meal, out there on the patio. And then the next morning, it was off to Modena, where we worked our way over to Osteria Francescana with plenty of time to spare.
On the way to the restaurant. I remember liking Modena very much the first time we visited, but I didn't fully recall how utterly charming and beautiful the place is. They have lots of these gorgeous wrap-around balconies, of which I will admit to being slightly covetous.
Seriously, the colors, and the arcades, and the shutters...just glorious. It's kinda what you picture in your head when you think "Italy." Or maybe "Mediterranean." Either way...strikingly pretty.
And now, to the meal! I and my more traditional tastes got outvoted, so we went with the "Sensations" menu, which is their more experimental/avant garde-y menu. Thankfully, it wasn't so weird. There were so many courses (twelve, I believe) that I've only included the ones that were interesting or were fantastically delicious. Thought these little amuse-bouches were cute: oyster and anchovy macarons.
This is what the best grissini in the world look like. These things were light, and a bit buttery.
My favorite dish involving seafood: eel with a sweet lacquer, green apple jelly, and cream of polenta. YUM.
This is where I confess that I, like an idiot, forgot to charge the camera battery, and so the remainder of the photos were taken with Mike's phone. Yes, this really was (close to) the electric green color of this dish, which was called "Think Green," and was served cold--peas, asparagus, fresh sliced mushrooms, edible flowers, and chlorophyll with a parmesan dressing. Hands down my favorite veggie dish of the meal: totally surprising in texture and flavor, especially since in real life, I despise asparagus and mushrooms. (These are two foods with which I will never, never reconcile. And I've tried.)
This was my absolute favorite dish of the entire meal: foie gras ravioli with grated black truffle, leek, and balsamic vinegar sauce. Foie gras is another of those delicacies I think are vastly overrated, but this...yowza. Utterly rich and deep and decadent.
This one was too pretty not to include: pigeon breast with fresh shaved horseradish (shockingly mild) and a celeriac/beet/potato salad.
Dessert was called "Oops, a broken lemon tart." Heh. It tasted nice and tart, too.
In addition to the quality and inventiveness of the food (as part of the wine pairing, they served one course with beer, and one with gentian liqueur!), the service made the place extraordinary. It was like a dance: between each course, at least four people would come to our table and silently clear away all dishes, utensils, and wine glasses (if the pairing called for it). Our wine and water glasses were never empty, and they gave us small bottles of balsamic vinegar as a parting gift. It was genuinely an experience, as opposed to just a meal, but still almost entirely lacking in any type of pretension, which is always possible in a Michelin-starred restaurant. Pretty exciting stuff, for gigantic food nerds such as ourselves.
Post-lunch, we all ducked into a lovely little leather goods store (in a NEAT old building), where they showed us their store room and workshop. They had crazy types of leather: both male and female cow (naturally, although I'm not sure how the leather differs), eel, python (insane texture), alligator, stingray (kinda pebbly), crocodile, and I'm sure there were others. Super interesting, and made more palatable by the fact that they use only the hides of animals which had either died naturally, or were used for other purposes. No wastefulness here.
More after-lunch wanderings: Modena is full of these interesting little architectural details...painting under the eaves, fancy moldings, and lots of assorted whatnot.
Clever little street lights which look old fashioned, but actually have no glass panes and use LED lights.
Seriously, the colors here...
And the light.
Did I mention the colors and the light?
And all of these perfect little street vignettes, with shutters and lamps and arcades and rooftop balconies and bell towers...just a lovely, lovely city. This is what we saw as we were meandering the streets in an attempt to A) stay awake after, and B) recover from, lunch (which wasn't nearly as traumatizing as good ol' Commerc 24 in Barcelona, but was still quite filling).
Statue in the Piazza Grande.
It might seem strange, but the dinner we ate after Osteria Francescana was actually my favorite meal of the trip. We rendezvoused on the Piazza Grande for a round of Aperol Spritzes, then headed off in search of dinner, which we found at Taverna dei Servi. We found them on a super quiet back street, where they had 4-5 tables outside on a streetside patio, and decided it looked perfect. Turns out, it was. Well, for me, anyway. Since none of us were terribly hungry (but who can skip a meal when in Italy?), we each settled on a small pasta dish. Mike opted for the tortellini in brodo (native to Modena); I had ravioli with radicchio, parmesan, and vinegar; Nanda had seafood ravioli in a garlic butter sauce; and René went for the gnocchi with sausage in tomato sauce. Four outstanding pasta dishes that were exactly what each of us were expecting, utterly delicious, and perfect in their simplicity. (Italy, your food makes us sad, in that we can't have it every day.)
Next morning, we headed to a cafe just off the Piazza Grande, and this was their cappuccino. Mmm...chocolatey.
Across the street was this smiley organ grinder whose old-school organ ran on something akin to the sheets that a player piano uses (you can see them coming out on the left side). He let a little boy play the thing, and made the kid's day.
No trip to an Italian city is complete without a trip to the local market, and everything in seemed to be in season just then. (On a related note, how is it that all of their fruits and veggies tend to be bigger and more colorful and in general more awesome than the sad little varieties we get here? Just wondering.)
Stands and stands full of fresh pasta.
Tropean onions. Heard of them before, but never seen them until now.
LOOK AT THESE CHERRIES. Meanwhile, back in Switzerland, the cherries were rock-hard and way too bright red to be edible.
Next up, we climbed the Ghirlandina (bell tower next to the cathedral) and saw this, the oddly beautiful Bucket Room.** (Nope, I did not just make that up. It's a real thing.) I'd show you photos of the view from the bell tower, but all of the windows had this annoying grating over them, so they came out terribly.
...and here's the ol' bell tower (Ghirlandina, one of the city's most famous symbols) itself.
Back on the ground...here's the view up the side of the cathedral towards the Piazza Grande.
Western facade of the cathedral, of which the oldest parts date back to the 11th century (!). Sadly, the eastern end (which I think is more interesting and unique) was all covered in scaffolding. Sigh.
Detail around the door.
Detail around another door.
Also visited the Acetaia di Giorgio, where they make balsamic vinegar (which is aging, as we speak, in these barrels). The acetaia is in what used to be the country (and party) home of the family who produces this particular vinegar. This is not the stuff you buy in the grocery store to put on your salad: it's rich and sweet and dark and syrupy and crazy tangy, and well aged and highly regulated (read: catnip for snobs, but still...YUM).
On our way back into the center from the acetaia, with the weather being outrageously hot and humid, we naturally had to stop for a gelato or two. I got mine at this marvelous place called Slurp, which had more flavors (artisanal, of course...like we'd be caught dead around anything mass-produced! feh!) than I've ever seen in one store...and still, I opted for the organic cherry slushy that they had churning away behind the counter. (I freely admit that I am a gigantic sucker for anything cherry-flavored, especially when it's nice and tart, but also when it's hot outside and I'm melting.)*** Everyone else opted to wait until we got back into the city, whereupon we found Gelateria Pomposa. Holy smokes, I have never seen or tasted anything like the gelato they made there: I had a small scoop of apricot with actual chunks of fruit in it (!); Nanda had ricotta with nuts and honey (impossibly tasty); René went with the hazelnut (complete with candied nuts); and Mike had a scoop each of mascarpone with figs and this insanely deep, dark, almost bitter chocolate with hazelnuts. If you're in the neighborhood, kids, GO THERE. GO THERE NOW.
Then it was off to a beer pub (for the boys) on this lively little square, which was lined with cafes and restaurants and full of students and people just enjoying being outside. Really, really nice.
Finished off our second evening in Modena with dinner at Danilo, an old-school tavern-type restaurant where we ate dinner in a stiflingly hot little outdoor area. Good food, though: the standout for me was our shared appetizer of salami and prosciutto with little squares of fried bread (which were oddly sopaipilla-like!), and pieces of sharp cheese topped with fig jam. Heavenly. I followed that with a ham and rucola pasta and a plate of white beans in tomato sauce; Mike opted for pumpkin tortellini followed by veal Milanese; Nanda went with a lovely lasagna; and René had a plate of ricotta tortellini and then a slab of beef topped with balsamic vinegar sauce and mashed potatoes. And of course, making it all bearable (the combination of heat and hot food, I mean!) were the obscene quantities of Lambrusco that we put away over the course of the whole trip. Mmmmm, Lambrusco...
Ahem. Refocusing on the travels: on our way home the next day, we made another stop through Bergamo so Nanda could see a little bit of it, and caught some lunch as well. Fortunately for us, René has the current Michelin guide on his phone, and found us the Taverna Colleoni dell'Angelo, right on Piazza Vecchia. I think it was a bit snootier than any of us were anticipating, but outstanding food was had by all. I started with ravioli with pecorino, black pepper, peas, fava beans, and red pepper in butter sauce, and then had a filet of cod in rosemary chickpea puree with fried pea shoots, and it was all extremely tasty, but it wasn't nearly as pretty as what everyone else had.
Mike's plate of casoncelli (topped with bacon and parmesan slices, naturally).
The surprise standout of the meal: René's monkfish salad with tomatoes, red onions, green beans, and some sort of tangy sauce. Really, really good.
My fabulous dessert: raspberries three ways (sorbet, topped with burned sweet cream, and with white chocolate).
Mike's fabulous dessert: the best creme brulee I've ever tried, with a side of cherry sorbet.
Piazza Vecchia in the upper city. Our restaurant was the white awning on the right...so not a horrible view.
Piazza Vecchia.
You don't really get to pet random peoples' dogs in Europe the way you sometimes can in the US (travesty! hearbreak!), so I settled for taking a picture of this one instead. Heh.
Entrance to Santa Maria Maggiore (left) and Colleoni chapel (right) from the covered marketplace on Piazza Vecchia.
Detail of those ridiculous facades. Sooooo fancy.
Interior of Santa Maria Maggiore. The building itself was constructed from the 12th through 15th centuries, but most of the original frescoes (from the Middle Ages and Renaissance era) were covered up by all of this foofy, Baroque insanity. (Those paint-and-plaster-loving Baroque jerks were always covering over "improving" something older and more awesome.)
Leaving Bergamo's upper city: these walls date to the 17th century.
Sigh...what a seriously fantastic, delicious, and laid-back trip. As I'm apparently fond of saying, it was a good time with good friends, and well worth the money and the drive.
What I'm reading: finished off the ol' Grimnoir Chronicles, all of which I enjoyed, but I think that the first one was still the best, for me. Then, an abrupt change of pace (as I've run out of interesting fiction to read) over to Extraordinary, Ordinary People, Condoleezza Rice's autobiography. It's on-and-off interesting, and I certainly admire just how hard-working and ambitious and brilliant she is, but I don't know. The writing style is so straightforward and bland that it's a bit difficult to stay engaged, and sometimes it just reads like a list of honors. (Of which there were many.) The part that I've found the most interesting is reading about her (and her family's) experiences in Bull Connor-era Birmingham, which was still familiar subject matter from all of the Civil Rights courses I took in college.
What we're watching: Parker, with Jason Statham. Ugh. Just don't. There are some genuinely stupid (...and here I don't mean the kind of stupid that I love) movies in the world, and this is one of them. It's almost entirely derivative of Payback, only not remotely good. Last night we watched Warm Bodies, the zombie movie in which one of said zombies falls in love with a human. It's certainly a bit on the goofy side, and definitely not recommended for true zombie movie enthusiasts, but it did have a few genuine laughs in it, and the primary zombie character was actually well written and quite compelling.
Up next: well, it would have been a trip to the Piemonte for an Elton John concert (not kidding), but the saga of Ned continues. Poor kitten's had a bad year: first epilepsy, then the big traumatic-for-kittens apartment move, and now this. I had the pleasure, four Sundays ago, of taking him into the emergency vet, whereupon he got to have surgery to remove a stubborn hairball from his stomach. (Nine years old, and all his life a long-haired cat...and this is the first time it's happened. Go figure.) He seems to be almost entirely recovered now (KNOCK ON WOOD, KNOCK ON WOOD, KNOCK ON WOOD!), but his being in recovery three weeks ago meant that I got to sit at home next to my cranky conehead cat, rather than getting to go on our months-in-planning trip to Piemonte--for which Jen and Dave had come to town, no less! I missed out on spending time with them, in addition to a whole bunch of other things that I'd been genuinely excited about for a long time: dinner at La Bottega di Cesare! a potential visit to a castle (which we've never done there, despite visiting the Piemonte going on seven years now, and despite the fact that they're all over the place in those hills, and can I just tell you how insane it makes me that we have yet to set foot in one of them??)! and even making a full week vacation of it for ourselves, by spending the last few nights in lovely Torino! But then Ned got sick, and then Elton John did too (seriously), and although I still wanted so badly to go, someone had to keep an eye on the poor kitteh, and so...next up will probably be another "here's what's happened in the last few weeks" post. I hear the Piedmont was lovely. Apologies that I cannot tell you more about it.****
*Certainly not the fanciest of red wines, but SO perfect for hot summer weather! It can border on the sweet, but for the most part, it's a dry, sparkling red wine that's served chilled, and it's seriously cheap. Best. Combination. Ever.
**Attention, nerds: of course, the Bucket Room has a terrifically interesting story. During the battle of Zapolino in 1325, a handful of Modenese snuck into the center of enemy Bologna and stole a wooden bucket (...although we don't necessarily know that it's this bucket) from a public well. The bucket was kept as a reminder of their bravery, and this well-protected room has since been used as a safe repository, in times of danger, for the city archives and the silver treasures from the cathedral. The frescoes attest to the importance of this function and date to the 15th century. NEAT-O.
***My favorite gelato flavor is amarena, which is this kinda old-school one that involves a sweet-ish cherry base topped in sour cherry syrup. When it's sour enough, it's unbelievably good.
****And also, thanks for listening to me whine. "Ooh, poor me, I didn't get to go to Italy this one time. My life is so horrible." So much for not taking this whole living-in-Europe thing for granted.
