Regional cooking remains a glory of Italy, a nation as fragmented in its culinary practices as the cracked shell of a hard-cooked egg before peeling. There are threats to regional individuality, of course. Some are as obvious as the pizza shops-once found only in Naples and the far south-that prosper now in Florence and Milan. Others are more subtle, involving the encroachment of processed foods into Italian daily life and changing dining and drinking patterns.
But to the hungry American tourist, issues that inflame Italy’s gastronomic purists are unlikely to be noticed in the midst of trying to find something familiar on menus.
For the traveler, in fact, it is better to focus on the moment and realize that restaurant dining in Italy is not intended to be a passive exercise. Italians question their waiter closely about the daily selection. They get up and inspect any display of antipasti or uncooked ingredients. If there’s access to the kitchen, they feel free to walk in, look about and interrogate the chef.
While the language barrier may preclude detailed conversation between a visitor from America and a waiter or the host, it’s worthwhile to try to convey a desire to taste dishes special to the chef, the region, the season. If oral communication fails, go to the food display and point. The staff will realize you care about what you eat, and in Italy that matters.
While chefs and seasons change, traditional regional dishes stay on menus or in the minds of locally-born waiters. I’ll share some of those I’ve experienced in hopes they may provide touchstones to help the culinarily curious appreciate the genius of Italian cucina.
In most cases, making a reservation a day or two in advance (ask your hotel concierge to make arrangements) should suffice at these restaurants. Telephone numbers are local.
Let’s start in Bologna, long regarded-as is Lyons in France-as the nation’s culinary capital.
Like Lyons, Bologna benefits from the ingredients that come from the surrounding countryside. Emilia-Romagna, as the region is known, is the home of Parmesan cheese and proscuitto ham. It’s also famous for baked goods. But the eye-opener is to taste the mother of all meat sauces, ragu alla bolognese. It’s made with ground veal, pancetta, tomatoes, onion, carrot, celery, red wine and eventually some milk or cream. Delicate yet rich, served in small portions over tagliatelle or in lasagna, it is a revelation. A good place to experience this epiphany is Il Bitone (Via Emilia Levante 111; 051-546-110; closed Monday and Tuesday). Don’t hold back on the antipasti (seek dishes that feature the region’s pork products) and pasta. The food becomes less interesting thereafter.
From Bolgona, one’s appetite points north to Venice, west to Florence or, most likely, both ways simultaneously.
To me, it’s not just the city of Venice that’s in danger of sinking. The whole culinary establishment is posed on quicksand composed of ennui and it is all too easy to be duped by cynical waiters and complaisant cooks. The great gastronomic attraction in this city surrounded by water is the seafood from the Adriatic Sea. The best place I’ve found to sample it isn’t in Venice at all, but on the mainland, in Mestre where the trains deposit travelers. At Dall’Amelia (Via Miranese 113; 041-913-951; closed Wednesday) they serve platters of raw shellfish heart-stopping in their beauty, seafood with risotto or pasta, poached or grilled fin fish so fresh they still are impregnated with the tang of the sea and need no accompaniment other than a drizzle of olive oil. Here is a place to try squid in its ink, with risotto perferably. As a bonus, the restaurant has one of Italy’s best wine lists.
Back in Venice, I recommend a trip to the very expensive but appealingly clublike Harry’s Bar (Calle Vallaresso 1323; 041-523-6797; closed Monday) the birthplace of the much imitated raw beef appetizer carpaccio and the Bellini cocktail.
Tuscany, of which Florence is the prize city, has perhaps Italy’s most distinctive cuisine. The region is so rich in olives, wine, game and tame meat and seafood from the Mediterranean that local cooks long ago adopted an austere approach to preparing them. They don’t even add salt to Tuscan bread.
A memorable exposure to this spartan style can be experienced at Coco Lezzone (Via del Parioncino, 26r; 055-287-178; closed Saturday and Sunday in summer, Sunday and Tuesday evening the rest of the year). Communal seating, no-frills decor, Chianti in unlabeled bottles and the opportunity to sample fagioli al fiasco (white beans cooked in a glass flask) and bistecca alla fiorentina (a Tuscan T-bone steak, cut thin and served with lemon wedges).
There’s a famous, if hard-to-find, shrine to Tuscan country cooking-hearty fare such as salt-cod stew, pappardelle pasta with hare or rabbit sauce, broiled and grilled game and game birds-near the lovely walled town of Lucca. It’s Solferino (at a crossroads called Localita San Macario in Piano, Via delle Gavine 50; 0583-59-118; closed Wednesday and Thursday for lunch).
Continue west to the seaside resort of Viareggio (about 100 kilometers from Florence) and enjoy a tasting of the freshest possible seafood at Romano (Via Mazzini 120; 0548-31-382; closed Monday). The olive oil and house wine come from the owner’s property and his chef-wife provides a tasting menu that includes seafood soup and salad and scaled-down entrees that feature scampi, prawns, red mullet, seabass or whatever else has swimmed into view.
Before turning south, a detour to Milan, Italy’s fashion and commerce center. The food there has been influenced by the chilly winter climate, the production nearby of rice, polenta (cornmeal), cattle, cheese and other dairy products and-in the nearby Piedmont-game, white truffles and wines such as Barolo, barbera and Asti spumante.
Two hometown dishes to sample here are risotto Milanese, rice cooked slowly atop the stove that is flavored with saffron and enriched with beef marrow, and costoletta alla milanese, a veal chop pounded to a thickness of perhaps 1/4-inch. (At this point the chop is of a diameter to earn the nickname “elephant ear” and will nearly cover a plate.) It is coated with beaten egg and bread crumbs and fried.
Seek these dishes at Bice (Via Borgospesso 12; 02-7600-2572; closed Monday and Tuesday for lunch), mother of the Chicago restaurant of the same name. A restaurant not to be missed here is Aimo e Nadia (Via Montecuccoli 6; 02-416-886; closed Saturday for lunch and Sunday) where you might try eggplant rolls with buffalo mozzarella and herbs or a dish featuring polenta.
Also in Milan is an extraordinary temple of foodstuffs, Peck (Via Victor Hugo 4; 02-876-774; closed Sunday). Its short name covers an empire, a restaurant and a group of specialized food shops featuring fish, wine, cheese and deli items.
Turin, to the northwest of Milan, is the keeper of the aristocratic culinary traditions of Italy’s brief monarchy. At the remarkably preserved mid-19th Century restaurant Del Cambio (Piazza Carignano 2; 011-546-690; closed Sunday) they still serve an authentic finanziera, a frightenly rich dish made with thinly sliced veal, calf’s sweetbreads, brains, cockscombs, chicken livers and kidneys.
Turning south, all roads lead to Rome. Like any capital city, Rome has a great variety of provincial restaurants, some of which overshadow the culinary efforts of local cooks. But for Roman style and food you can’t beat the chic, clubby, pricy Andrea (Via Sardegna 26; 06-482-1891; closed Sunday). None of the glitz of the nearby Via Venato permeates the restaurant. Understated elegance is the rule in the dining room and on the plate. The focus here is on the antipasti selections and two classics you will long remember are the suppli (rice croquettes) and a definitive buffalo mozzarella. Follow with roast lamb-leg or chops-and you will have dined as the Romans wish they could do.
One of the great dishes in the Italian culinary repertory is artichoke alla giudia (Jewish style). The artichoke is pressed and fried, emerging from this torture with crisp leaves and a melting heart. It’s fame is due largely to one restaurant, Piperno (Monte de Cenci 9; 06-654-0629; closed Sunday evening and Monday). There’s also a delicious air-dried wild boar to sample among the antipasti.
South of Rome, along the Amalfi peninsula with its incredibly blue sky above and equally blue sea beyond, it would be foolish not to eat seafood, prepared in the simplest possible way, and drink white wine, also simple and uncomplex. Seafood soups and salads often are revelations. Fish fried in olive oil emerges, miraculously, with the lightness of popcorn.
La Cambusa in Positano (on the beach; 089-875-432) and Pizzeria Aurora on Capri (Via Fuorlovado 18; 081-837-0181; closed November to April) fullfill the commitment to simplicity without skimping on quality. For high-style dining and sophisticated modern cooking consider Don Alfonso 1890 near Sorrento (Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi, Piazza Sant’Agata; 081-878-0026; closed Sunday evening, Monday).
As for Naples, the Miami Beach of Italian tourism, a likely choice of a place to sample pizza in its birthplace is Ciro a Mergellina (Via Mergellina 18-21; 081-681-780; closed Monday). The friggitoria-pizzeria was opened in the early 1850s by the same family that runs it today, so it’s not surprising the pizzas are classically simple. Mergellina is the old fishermen’s district and offers a view of the Bay of Naples. If you want a full meal, the antipasti here, especially the fried foods, is noteworthy, as are the fish soup and fish entrees.
