El Molin (Trento): enter a magic world

 (Visited July 2012)

When you enter El Molin, a restructured old mill with a weird architecture and unusual spaces for a restaurant, you already feel you are abandoning reality to enter a different, fairy-like world.



And indeed you're in for a unique experience, sometimes a great one, not always a perfect one, this place is not about perfection: but a unique one. Gilmozzi is an excellent chef who has has a style - a 'philosophy' as many a pompous restaurant website (but not he) would say. He creates  menus that it would be impossible to have anywhere else. And that, it has to be said, sometimes even seem to be out of commercial logic and really meant to fulfill his creative needs more than anything else.

Not that there is anything 'molecular' or overly strange going on here. The menu looks in part very straightforward and traditional, but even the traditional dishes will surprise you, sometimes in subtle ways. And tonight we mostly skipped the most adventurous items.

Be assured, for example, that when you see that Char coaled Grigia Alpina (Alpine Gray, a local cow breed) with rhubarb and horseradish is on the menu, it's not going to be just an anonymous slab of grilled beef. 

Unless you've been in the mountainous North East of Italy you've never tried this beef (this robust cow is deeply adapted to the local terrain), and even so you are far more likely to have had it at the table of a farmer than in a restaurant (we've never seen it in several years of restaurant/trattoria going in Trentino). The beef is intensely flavoured (in itself and thanks to the expert charcoaling, perhaps the real secret of this dish), with a marvelous texture, the crispy horseradish and the rhubarb, ingredients, especially the first, that definitely look to Central and Northern Europe more than to the Mediteranean, providing a gentle, apt accompaniment. This is a dish that not only is good, but that also tells a story, the story of a territory and of culinary influences.

This came after a pasta with local Fontal cheese and truffles from the Lessini mountains, which was OK but surprised us in being more forgettable than the rest of the meal. And a long sequence of breads, butters, nibbles and amuses made with skill and love (notable a potato bread). The pasta just below is an amuse, not the primo:

The breads came first in a nice basket:

... and then just kept coming, in a variety of flavours and cooking styles:

A Krapfen with seaweed mayonnaise, sea lettuce and braised eel

speaks, in flavour and presentation, of the more modernist side of the cuisine. It is elegant and playful, it is rich and light and delicious. 

A very clean dish of

Roe deer loin in extra virgin olive oil with vegetable chips and Moscato sauce

brings back again the primordial pleasure of a great piece of meat simply cooked (pink) with utmost care, yielding the flavours of the wood.

But a dessert called 'Borderline', stark-looking and dense with incredibly tight aromatic and bitter notes REALLY pushed the boat out, too much for more dessert-conservative Woman, but sending Man, who always found very sweet desserts ultimately immature, into Paradise. He would eat this again, and again, and again (oh we can't quite remember what it was: roots, herbs... gotta go back and find out!).




Woman is more content, very content in fact, with this milk torte, hay and violet. Remarkable: the milk transformed into a sponge soaking up the sauce below, and the ethereally crunchy wafer - delicious!

 And we both still remember with delight the Variation's of creme brulee, a kind of signature dessert which we've had on previous visits and is a lecture in flavour extraction.

Price wise, as we mentioned before, so great is the disparity between the quality and elaboration (and also quantity) of what you eat and what you pay (consider also that we are in Michelin starred venue), that we worry about the economics of this restaurant! Service was very friendly and correct, and the chef often comes out himself to introduce his dishes (to each table).



Chef Gilmozzi may not pull off only perfect dishes, and not all dishes are for all tastes, but he dares and thinks and researches, he creates a magic world in his unique restaurant, an experience that is strange and fascinating precisely because it is so firmly based on the local produce and tradition, where the flavours of the surrounding woods and mountains are assembled and disassembled according to his unlimited fancy. A must go place in Trentino, and the perfect complement to the not distant, more traditional Malga Panna.

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Locanda Margon (Trento): Love and genius

(Visited March 2012)


We know Locanda Margon very well. We had gotten quite friendly, due to or long custom, with previous chef Walter Miori (read there if you want to know about the Lunelli (= Italian champagne Ferrari) connection), who will always stay in our memory for the many culinary emotions he gave us. Thanks Walter.


Since a few years ago the time of Alfio Ghezzi (previously sous chef of Andrea Berton's of renowned Trussardi alla Scala) has come, and, OK, maybe we are just culinary whores, but in truth we have enjoyed some memorable dinners at the 'new' Locanda as well.


But truly memorable.

Once you get over the rather sombre lighting of the room in the 'salotto gourmet', it's a feast. The seats are so very comfortable, the tables wide and very well spaced. It is indeed a 'salotto'. This is pure, almost embarrassing, comfort. The room, though, is dark as we said, so unfortunately the pictures are particularly grainy, and do not make justice to the food.

Even before you choose, and then while you wait, you are treated to a dizzying selection of amuse bouches that span an incredible range of flavours, textures and produce - here we only post a couple, but the number and variety will bowl you over.

left - trout roe crostini; right: liver bonbons

left - trout roe crostini; right: liver bonbons

top: carambola  "alpine star" with casoulet cheese; bottom: trentigrana nests with asparagus

There are too many to detail. There are terroir based crunchy polenta with goat 'robiola' cheese, and a 'stella alpina' with casulet cheese . There's an ingenious tempura mortadella with apples and Perle' (one of the house champagnes). There's a deeply impressive crispy Trentingrana cheese with warm asparagus. There's a truly punchy liver (of what? can't remember) bonbons. And some more delicate crostini with trout roe.


You think that was all we had before the meal proper? Naah.


There are also the lighter snacks, like the trade mark multicoloured crispy rings in various flavours, and the breads. This is almost overwhelming, and you know you are in for an extraordinary experience, as beside being pretty and catchy, you can already see there's real substance to this food.


So many dishes a la carte are attractive that the first decision you make is that you need at least three visits to get a complete picture.


At two extremes of conception, we had an ethereal ziti pasta with capelonghe (razor clams),

 which was stunningly clean, sharp and clear in flavour (lemon and a very special oregano from Sicily), a true geometry of pleasure; and a powerful, earthy main of hare Royale with rosemary parsnip


 


that was prepared in the classic Royale style but in a way we'd never quite seen before, the moist 'polpettone' enclosing the supremely well cooked saddle, achieving pinnacles of deep flavour thanks to the foie gras and the innards. This is Koffmann's level stuff...and we don't mention the name of the master in vain...The parsnip and rosemary though (and this is the only negative note for this dish) were blandish and thus overwhelmed, a pity.


We also had a potato cannelloni, crema di salmerino (local trout), ginger and liquorice





a complex dish, a difficult dish in a sense, with cutting edge, daring flavours, that first startles you, has you suspended as if from a cliff of the surrounding mountains, but ends up in total harmony and peace. 

Oh my god, will we have to use the word 'genius'?


The other main was a mullet





pretty as a picture (prettier than OUR picture!), with an exceptional bisque, simply a great dish.


The petit fours arrive in French style before the desserts, and like the amuses, they overwhelm you:





The oh so amusing trademark pizza macaroon, the tarte tatin. the tiramisu, the torroncino, the hazelnut pralines...Is there no end to plasure?


No, for the deserts are on their way:


Biscotto foresta nera (black forest), liquorice and fiordilatte icecream


Rhubarb icecream and beetroot with "uliva 1111" olive oil and mini pop-corn

1111 oil being poured

The desserts are just perfect for our complementary tastes, Man loves fruit and veg based desserts without too much sweetness and with some sharpness. He thoroughly loved the balance of flavours and the imagination achieved in this one, with the excellent olive oil poured on the spot (even, ever the cynical and gimmick-allergic one, overcoming the mild irritation for an olive oil called 1111 because it is produced in this number of bottles: who T F cares?).


Get over the gimmicky oil name, this dish did deliver - the playfulness of the popcorn, the acidity of the rhubarb and the sweetness of the beetroot all came together. But for the stuff of comfort move over to the Black Forest.

Woman plunged into the chocolate emerging from it only quite a while later and looking blissful. The licorice was perfectly balanced, the sponge fluffy but firm, the morello cherries just perfect, and the creamy parfait linking all the flavours: really good.


The service, formal but not too much, strikes all the right keys. The sommelier accompanies you with grace whether you want to spend like a cheap bastard or like a Russian oligarch (the only negative, at least for us, was the champagne trolley at the beginning, which we find too pushy). Everybody is well briefed on the dishes.


The bill stayed within the 200 euro with a bottle of wine at 50 euro and a bottle of water, which is a very good price for this quality (and quantity!).


Despite being fans of the previous chef as we said, and also a bit suspicious in the beginning, Alfio Ghezzi's cuisine has completely convinced us over the years: He is not a youngster (listen who's talking...) and there is real maturity in what he does, there is a real depth of culinary culture in his dishes, a deep respect for local tradition and for classical, mostly French, techniques combined with an equal mastery of all modern contrivances and an exuberant creativity. He can also carve a chicken...





If there is a restaurant that could be the first to obtain two Michelin stars in Trento, this is it, so superior it is to its starred nearby competitors, and so comparable in quality to other two-starred places we've visited. Ghezzi has found a perfect local niche where to shine and become a beacon well beyond the confines of Trentino.


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Osteria 'Il Cappello' (Trento, IT)

The day: 3rd June 2009, Dinner

The place: P.tta B. Lunelli 5, Trento (IT), tel: 0461 235850

The venue: Osteria ‘Il Cappello’

Closest airport: Verona (British Airways), Brescia (Ryanair)

The food: Modern regional, fusion

The drinks: Local

Tucked away in the narrow alleys in central Trento, we notice this osteria which, for some reason, gives us good vibes. Or maybe we know: it says that pasta and bread are made on the premises, always a winner with us.

So your intrepid reporters, hoping for a scoop, and for a good meal, immediately book.

On arrival, we discover that the unassuming entrance on the alley is matched by a larger one on a pretty small pedestrian piazza (court). There is an ‘al fresco’ area with tables overlooking that piazza, and one of those we choose. Here is how it looked when we left:

While simple, there is some modest elegance for an ‘osteria’. The waiters wear a coordinated attire. We must look really terrible, far below the standards they expect, because they don’t even give us the wine list…;)…but we do ask for it and order a bottle, stunning the waiter.

The menu strikes for being less rustic than one might have expected: yes it offers the usual regional suspects such as ‘carne salada’ (€8), but also non-local antipasti such as ‘Marinated Swordfish carpaccio with diced pears’ (€9.50) and several fish dishes which we will actually try. Among the non-fish primi, we mention the ‘Mezzelune filled with aubergines and cream of yellow peppers’ (€10). Among the secondi, we would have been interested in the ‘Veal loin in herbs and breadcrumbs, with shallots and glazed cherry tomatoes’ (€17).

There is no amuse bouche, but the bread arrives:

It is made on the premises, as we said, and it is good with a good selection. We start well!

We begin with our primi:

- Spaghetti with vongole (clams) and zucchine (courgettes) perfumed with mint (€10)

- Warm courgette cream with code di gamberi (langoustine tails) (€9)

In the spaghetti, the mint hits really strong, but not unpleasantly so, the portion of clams is indeed osteria style (i.e. generous), and of good quality (‘veraci’). The spaghetti are cooked just right, and the olive oil is abundant and fine. Pleasant, except for some excess salt.

The cream expresses an intense vegetable flavour, matching well the quite reasonable prawns (have you ever tried to reason with a prawn?). This may not be a Michelin star level dish, but it is balanced, correct, satisfying.

For our mains, we seem to stun the waiter a second time with a non-standard choice: we have a regular main and two portions of a starter which intrigued us, the octopus and potato salad with Taggiasche olives. After a few explanations, he resigns himself to the fact that we are weird.

So here they are:

- Octopus and potato salad with Taggiasche olives (9.50€ for the starter portion).

- Fillet of seabream Mediterranean style (€19)

The bream is cooked quite well (just a tad over), well-seasoned, and itself of good quality. It is excellently matched with grapefruit and lemon zest, beside the Mediterranean regulation cherry tomatoes and olives.

The octopus come pressed as a ‘tortino’, and is delicious, plump, moist, in the right proportion to the potatoes, with the olive tapenade and the pesto sauce providing strongly flavoured moistness. The hit of the evening.

Finally, as we are on duty on an off-duty night, we share a dessert: this choice is just for dietary reasons, not an indication of our opinion of the cuisine so far!

- Torta al cioccolato ripiena di (filled with) mousse e pera al cioccolato fondente (€7)

Simple, yes, but well executed: this a rewarding, nicely presented and airy dessert. We are impressed.

For wine we had a smooth and vivacious Pinot Nero Fontana 2006, good value at €19. With water at €2.50, the bill adds up to €90. Considering that we had seafood, in generous portions and well-prepared, and that we are in the centre of Trento, this is correct value.

Aside from our joking remarks above, the two waiters were really friendly and correct. The chef at ‘Il Cappello’ is clearly endowed with a nice hand, presenting resolute flavours but always handled with some delicacy and tasteful presentation (we believe the chef is a woman). This osteria punches above the osteria level. It is a bit squeezed, in terms of offering and prices, between the starred restaurant, which you can achieve for just €25 per head more, and the really excellent value trattorias/osterias around the city. While the cuisine here does not achieve the standards of Menestrina/Fior di Roccia, we still find it cuisine of some accomplishment, and a very good choice if you are looking for a walkable option in Trento city.

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Da Pino

The day: 8^th April 2009, Dinner.

The place: Via Postal 39, Grumo, San Michele all’ Adige, Trento (IT) (0461 650 435)

The venue: Ristorante Da Pino

The food: Regional and fish

Airport: Verona, Brescia (BA, Ryanair)

The drinks: Mostly from Trentino-Alto Adige, very wide selection (in the high hundrdes of labels)

We thought by now we knew all the interesting choices within 10 miles of Trento. Well, life is full of surprises: how presumptuous of us! Driving along the Adige valley, in Teroldego wine country, this spacious restaurant appears in the tiny village of Grumo, with claims to honest, wholesome cuisine and boasting appealing prices.

The interior is spacious, welcoming, light, neat if a bit eccentric, with a gentle touch of formality that one might not expect. We learn later that the restaurant caters for large parties and functions. Anyway, on the night, luckily for us there are only a dozen customer beside us.

On the menu, many local, trattoria style dishes, but what catches our attention is a copious presence of seafood offerings. We call the waiter and try to glean some information (we are in the middle of mountains and to eat good seafood one really must go to the right places: Man’s disgusted grimace at Woman’s proposal to go for fish says it all…). The waiter is convincing. Woman eggs on. And we are encouraged by the information that all seafood here is supplied by a well-known fishmonger nearby, a fishmonger that serves some of the best restaurants in Trento. We go for it. (Next time we might try the Trentino tasting menu at €32, with enticing items such as Local apple risotto with cinnamon or Seared venison loin with pan-fried apples, juniper and Polenta di Storo).

The bread arrives:

Not a bad offering, indeed the variety is very surprising: walnut bread ‘taralli’, standard white, grissini, rye. The usual thought strikes us: a restaurant that shows such care for the bread basket must show a similar care for food.

Both our primi are seafood:

- Thyme tonnarelli with Scampi (aka Dublin bay prawns) tails and asparagus (€10)

- ‘Fazzoletto’ al nero (squid-ink) with seabass filling and langoustine sauce (€10)

The fazzoletto (a large pasta slice, lasagna style, but folded) looks impressive, its elegant black dress provocatively offering a glimpse of the filling. It’s a balanced explosion of Mediterranean flavours, the fish fresh, tasty, light, and generous. The pasta is very good: the restaurant buys it in from a trusted supplier, who formerly worked on the premises. Always suspicious of bought in materials, for this reason alone we had not wanted to try this dish (Woman’s disgusted grimace at Man’s proposal to go for it says it all…), but when we expressed our perplexity to the waiter he vouched so energetically for the quality of the pasta, egged on by Man, that we capitulated. And once again he was convincing…

The tonnarelli are sligthly salty. But the fish once again cannot be faulted for freshness and flavour, nor its quantity for lack of generosity. The asparagus comes in both white and green variety, a nice touch, and the always present tomatoes add moisture. All is bound by very good quality olive oil, leaving an impression of richness and lightness at the same time.

For mains, we both go for the same choice:

- Roasted seabass (€15)

For the joy of the waiter we insisted on boning the large portions of fish ourselves (which –we noticed- wasn’t the case at the other tables: what is the world coming to?).

It does not take that long to produce this:

When eating fresh fish, the process, slowing you down, actually increases your pleasure and satisfaction, don’t you agree? And this was truly fresh, full of flavour. What more to say? Well, maybe that it was a little overcooked, though mercifully just so and definitely not to the point of spoiling the experience. The roast tomatoes with capers, herbs and olives, in true ‘southern’ style (at the foot of the Alps!), were a delicious accompaniment (but very rich!).

We are in the mood for dessert.

- Raspberry cake (‘tortino’) (€5)

- Sweet fantasia (€6.50)

The tortino is correctly made and carries an intense, authentic raspberry whiff, but is slightly dry, so the accompanying custard, quite OK, is very welcome.

The fantasia presents us with a strawberry parfait (a little ‘brittle’), a ‘crostata’ (slightly dry), panettone-like (OK), blueberry buckwheat cake (excellent, intense, and strudel (OK, but made with puff pastry and therefore neither truly traditional nor fully successful).

With a bottle of Chardonnay LongarivaPraistel 2000 at €28 and 1 litre of H2O at €2.50 the total damage comes to €95,30. This is extremely reasonable for a seafood dinner of such quality and quantity.

What a nice little place (well, actually not so little) this one. The service is friendly with varying levels of professionalism (one knowledgeable and very passionate waiter, another less interested in the dishes he was selling us), but always attentive. As for the cuisine, it expresses a rewarding feeling of generosity, of care, both in the choice of materials and in the process of cooking itself. Despite the formality this is essentially a (superior) trattoria: you will not find highly sophisticated creations here, but plainly good food, with some touches of originality with respect to the classics, some attention to presentation, and some assuredness of touch. So, congratulations to the head chef Beppe Principe and to the family who runs this operation with such honesty and integrity (it reminds us a bit of Da Barbara in Sardinia). We will probably be back, and we invite you to try it, too!

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Ristorante Monti Lessini

The day: 22^nd March 2009, Lunch.
The place: 38061 Sega di Ala (Trento, IT) (tel: 0464-671253
The venue: Albergo Monti Lessini
The food: Local Italian
The drinks: No wine list, a handful of choices are offered to you verbally.


We were saying in our scathing review last week that we are not at all snobby curmudgeons averse in to simple, rustic food...Here's an example.

After an extremely leisurely excursion (Man is recovering from another visit here) with ski racquets on the beautiful Monti Lessini (in the pre-Alps, really recommended for tranquil family outings),


our appetites were nonetheless epic. So we decided to try a simple looking local family-run restaurant, called, in a great feat of originality,


You enter and you feel at once at home, in a warm, inviting, hospitable, domestic environment:


For all the rusticity, there is even some nice touch in the 'mise-en-place'...


As we enter we immediately spot, guided by our dessert antennas, some trays with strudel and a very appetising cake, and, since we have arrived late and the room is full, we are overcome by the fear that they finish before we can have some...so we implore the husband and wife managing the room to save a couple of slices for us...The request is accepted. Our desserts are assured. Our minds at rest, we can now focus on the other offers, mostly local and traditional dishes. We begin with some which are suitable for our appetites:

- Tortelli di monte e noci al tartufo della Lessinia (tortelli mountain style with walnuts and local truffle) €6.60
- Tagliolini all' asino (asino = donkey) €5



Both dishes are generous, generously flavoured and generously doused in butter, the unusual donkey, vaguely gamey but not quite, being the intriguing bit. Don't look for balance in them: this is really as traditional as you can get. We have noticed that in this part of Italy the cooking of the pasta tends to the overdone, and here's no exception. But in such honest, satisfying, intense dishes, we can more than take it!

We are happy but still hungry...so next we have:

- Capriolo (roe-deer) in salmi' con polenta €9
- Stinco di maiale al forno (roasted pork shank) €6.50


Accompanied by two side vegetables (€2.50 each)


Salmi' is a classic preparation, involving a marinating stage of the meat in wine, vagetable and spices, and then a slow cooking in casserole. It is just perfect for game meats, and if properly executed the effect is guaranteed. This one is well executed, the only slightly disappointing bit being the polenta.
The lamb shank may not be cooked as refinedly as in starred resturants, but look at the beautiful colours resulting from this homely cooking. It has retained moistness and the flavour is really neat and pleasant.

We are now even happier, but of course we still have space for the desserts we had spotted in the beginning:

- Strudel di mele (2.80)
- Torta di noci (walnut cake) (€2.80)



These desserts do not disappoint. Oh no, they don't. The strudel appears in a terrible foto which does not render justice to its goodness, balance and perfect consistency, soft and rightly wet.
The walnut cake may look dry, and so we feared: but it was instead surprisingly soft and light, the walnuts coming out potently on your palate. Of course, in a more sophisticated establishment it would have been accompanied by some custard or ice cream or other liquid elements: but this IS home cooking!

For drinks we had a bottle of Rebo Cantina d'Isera 'Nove Sette' 2005 (good) at a very, very honest €14, a bottle of water at €2, and coffees at an incredible €0.90 each! The total is a heart-warming €58.40.

The service, provided by husband, wife and daughter, is naturally friendly but also efficient and professional. We will not say that this is a destination place which you should travel to exclusively for the cuisine. Even for a traditional trattoria, the cuisine does not, in fact, achieve the intensity of flavours and quality of materials that you find, for example, at Franca Merz's. But we WILL say that we ate very well here: not one poor dish in sight and some excellent ones, with our gluttony instinct attended to in a full and pleasant way. A nice example of 'granny' Italian cooking style in a professional kitchen, with a welcoming environment inside, and in a splendid setting outside: so, overall, a trip IS recommended for the whole package! This family has set up an intelligent and deeply honest operation, which is succesful for what we could see (packed room), and for which we'd like to congratulate them.

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