Trento December Pillgrimage n.1

This is the first of three sketches on our autumnal Trento pilgrimage...which commenced with our beloved Menestrinas, at Osteria Fior di Roccia.

We had the amazing Gran Bollito misto

in which even the humble potato becomes a rich treat, imbibed as it is with all that meaty delight.
Accompanied by the 5 prodigious sauces...

and this time also by pickled cherries

of wonderfully tart intensity.

But we could not let the chestnut menu go...

Chestnut gnocchi with walnuts and sultanas:


where the yummy materials are bound together so smoothly.

The Chestnut stuffed Hen:


Delicious, look at that golden meat.

Menestrina has the soul of a master patissier...

With the Bollito misto menu came

Bread and apple pudding with Schiava reduction:


And with the chestnut menu,

Chocolate and chestnut 'cupoletta', sharon fruit coulis

Chesnut and sharon fuit, that eternal autumnal combination, found on all tables from trattoria to multistarred (remember Hibiscus for example?)....but not everybody has a knack for it, nor the right raw material. At 2* Hibiscus, for example, the sharon fruit (and we must say, the whole dessert) was vastly inferior to the one we had here (at a small fraction of the price).

And have a look at the chestnut cremy triumph inside the gracious crunchy cupoletta, please :


As ever, in this simple and friendly trattoria, one finds materials of stunning quality cooked with passion and integrity, and, incredibly, with the precision and imagination of high cuisine. Menestrina modestly says: 'I'm not after masterpieces, I only do things as they should be done'. And he does!

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