More notes from Naples: Villa Rosa di Nonna Rosa

As you may have gathered from my last post, our trip to Naples was an absolute foodie delight.

It's a very...frenetic city, and I wasn't sure when we first arrived how much I would actually like it. The taxi drive from the airport, for example, was somewhat terrifying. Actually, every time we got in a taxi it was frankly terrifying. The narrow streets are teeming with people (and the odd rogue moped) and shop spill their wares outside onto the already narrow pavements meaning you can never actually walk in a straight line. Which is good for the old step count.

The longer we stayed though, the more we fell into the city's rhythm. And the fact that around every corner there was a new venue wherein one could enjoy an Aperol spritz helps as well - the edge gets taken off pretty quickly.

We also ventured outside of Naples itself - including a trip to Sorrento and a visit to a wonderful restaurant up in the hills outside the city. Villa Rosa di Nonna Rosa is a mission to reach but, sitting on the terrace overlooking the Mediterranean and eating the most glorious, rustic Italian food, one can almost forget the fact that so many taxi drivers refused to take us (their vehicles being too large for the narrow, winding mountain roads) that we almost didn't make it.

How's this for a lunchtime view:

It is a set menu - you get what you're given. And their is no wine list, just a choice of house red or house white - however, they do let you bring your own and do not charge corkage.

We started with something called "aria fritta" which was a sort of fried, upside down pizza. 

It was gorgeous, albeit rich - one would comfortably have served two people. Then they started bringing the antipasti out and we began to suspect that the kitchen was trying to kill us.

This is just a sample of the spread they provided! There was nothing really fancy or cheffy going on here, just amazing produce that tasted of sunshine and had been treated with the utmost respect. But, if I had to make a (very mild) criticism. there was a LOT of food and we still had pasta, a main course and a dessert to go (all of which were similarly delicious).

I just loved how unpretentious this was. The main course was, literally, pork and chips. And it was heaven! The meat was tender, the potatoes salty and the sauce was the most delicious, savoury gravy.

And all good meals should end with doughnuts.

I can't imagine that this is an experience we will ever have again but I am incredibly glad we got the opportunity to go while we were there and, if you find yourself in Sorrento, can locate a friendly taxi driver and are willing to screw your courage to the sticking point, then I would most certainly recommend.

Vienna - a tale of two dinners

The idea of being a Michelin inspector...now that, surely, is the dream job? I don't think that I'd be good at it though - I hate criticising people or bashing them and I am cripplingly polite. Seriously - it is a family trait and not a good one. I was musing about this because we went to two one-star restaurants on our recent trip to Vienna and one I adored and one I didn't but it all came down to a completely subjective view of the food being served and that's the thing - how do you divorce subjectivity from, presumably, a set of criteria that deigns something worthy of a star or not? I'm not sure I could do it.

I mean, there were plenty of reasons to like Apron. The service was fabulous - the most engaging, friendly, fabulous staff. The setting was gorgeous - dark, brooding, romantic...but with a table big enough that you didn't feel in constant danger of knocking your water glass over. A create your own tasting menu - yes, really! They have a menu of six starters, two mains and two desserts and you can pick your own five or seven courses for a set price which is extraordinary - I've never seen another restaurant do this. Everyone at the table can please themselves as well - you don't have to order the same thing. Which meant that D and I could cover all ten dishes between us by opting for a five course tasting menu. 

I say five courses, but Apron are out to break you as an eater. Before we even got to these there was a fabulous amuse of minestrone soup and Parmesan cream, some decadent snacks and a bread course that was just bonkers. It came with multiple accompaniments, the best of which was a candle MADE OF BUTTER that melted into a pork gravy. 

Once we got into the menu proper though, I started falling a bit out of love. I just didn't feel that the dishes were quite coherent enough, or sufficiently balanced. Of the starters - for me, the stand out was a glorious mushroom dish which tasted as bosky as you could possibly wish. But any textural contrasts were completely obliterated by the broth that was poured over at the table. Mains were good - I had chicken which is just not done often enough in high end restaurants - but not great. My chocolate dessert really needed some contrast from somewhere - the mango element on the plate was too sweet to balance out the delicious cremeux. Very pretty though.

The next night, we went to Pramerl and the Wolf. I thought that I was done with food at this point; it being the third night in a row we'd been for high end grub. I was wrong though - it turns out, when anything is this good, the stomach will find a way. Not a duff mouthful from start to finish; and I'd walk on coals to have the celeriac and scallop tartlet again, or the dinner rolls basted in bone marrow, or the squid and smoked eel in Parmesan cream. Service again was great, if a little more perfunctory than the night before, atmosphere good. Fabulous wine pairing - lots of interesting, natural wines which seems to be a really big deal in Austria, far more so than here.

One place, then, to which we will definitely return and one to which we will not, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either. I think, when it comes to food, what makes one's heart sing is subjective, and I wouldn't criticise anywhere for doing its thang when its thang just isn't my thang too.

Vienna - cake for breakfast

We have just had the briefest of sojourns in Vienna - three nights, two and a half days, and it wasn't nearly long enough. Usually after a holiday, I am ready to come home but this time...I would quite happily have stayed, even if just for another day or so. What a city! The architecture in the first district is, I think, the most beautiful and spectacular that I have seen anywhere in the world with a new delight around every single corner. 

Of course, being us, greedy as sin, our top priorities nearly all involved consumption of some sort or another. And yes, we did indeed have cake for breakfast. Twice.

The first - at Cafe Demel. This is one of two places that claims to have invented the famous Sachertorte and there is a permanent queue outside for both the cafe and the shop. It's just like you imagine a Viennese coffee shop to be though; ornate and twee at the same time. We breakfasted like kings (or emperors) on the aforementioned Sachertorte, apple strudel and a speciality of the house: Kaiserschmarrn. This last dish was our favourite - fluffy pancakes, torn up into scraps and dusted with sugar, served with apples, raisins and a side of stewed plums. So delicious! I'm going to try and make this at home (there are recipes online although I've not seen one yet that tucks spiced apple in amongst the pancake pieces).

The Sachertorte was...ok. The flavour combination of chocolate and apricot jam is lovely. The rich, chocolate icing was...well, rich and chocolatey although not as shiny as we were expecting (D clearly has absorbed some Bake Off lingo as he wondered out loud where the "mirror glaze" was to be found). And the cake was ever so slightly on the dry side - perhaps deliberately so, as it is served with cream and the moisture was provided by this, the jam and the coating. But, still, onwards.

The Hotel Sacher was just as gloriously Disney-esque inside as Demel, with be-suited waiters and a sweep of red carpeted stairs up to the dining room. Here we breakfasted slightly more sensibly - in that we had actual Viennese breakfast food rather than just cake. But, even so, along with a delicious bread, cheese and meat platter, the Viennese breakfast comes with a Sacher cube (Sachertorte in miniature form). D rather confused the waiter by asking for a slice of torte as well. He didn't feel that the cube would offer true like for like comparison.

Do you know - again it was only ok, and for the exact same reasons. In fact, there seemed to be practically no difference between the two although obviously impossible to fully tell without a side by side taste test. 

Regard that glorious meat and cheese plate, though! The truffled ham, in particular, was fantastic. 

So - Sachertorte ticked off the list - underwhelming, but only slightly so. Kaiserschmarrn introduced to the repertoire - happy days. Ridiculous practice of eating cake for breakfast - not to be encouraged in the normal run of things. 

A few days in Scotland

We've had a spate of holidays recently, which has been lovely, although the diary now stretches empty ahead of us until the back end of October. Sigh. Still, my digestion, liver and credit card all definitely need a bit of a rest, so I am hoping for some decent weather over the next few months so I can take up residence on our new outdoor decking and dedicate myself wholeheartedly to drinking tea and catching up with my Goodreads Reading Challenge.

The two "big" meals I will cover in a separate post, but in between the Michelin star, high-end deliciousness we still managed some excellent eating.

Firstly, we spent a quiet few days on the shores of Loch Fyne and, of course, we had to eat oysters at every given opportunity:

I also made it a personal goal to get thoroughly stuck in to the local venison; putting away both a loin, cooked to absolute blush-pink perfection:

And haunch shredded into a tender heap and piled into fabulously messy tacos:

Then to Glasgow, and my first lunch in the city found me sampling my first ever vegan burger - do you know, I really enjoyed it. It didn't have quite the mouthfeel of meat but the taste was rich and savoury. I will never be other than a carnivore, but I certainly wouldn't argue if someone served me up one of these in future. The beetroot bun wasn't quite up to the task of containing everything though, so I did end up eating it with a knife and fork. The shame.

We were primarily in Glasgow to go the TRNSMT festival and we were primarily at the TRNSMT festival to see Pulp play. What we learned while we were there: we are old. Festivals are not for the likes of us, even if we were of an age where we remembered the headline act being in the charts (as opposed to the majority of the audience who WEREN'T EVEN BORN IN THE 90s). The food and drink at the festival itself was not great, which, when you consider the amazing boom in street food vendors over the last few years was rather disappointing. Still, we consoled ourselves the following day with a meal at Glasgow stalwart, The Ubiquitous Chip. More venison, this time in the form of haggis (here hidden under a veil of swede and gravy):

And, of particular note, a couple of excellent desserts. D's peanut butter parfait with milk chocolate and yoghurt sorbet:

And my mango and passionfruit Rum Baba (not quite enough rum for my tastes, but forgiven since it was bursting with zingy tropical flavours):

All'Oro, Rome

Although every meal we had in Rome was memorable, our dinner at All'Oro will linger in the memory for a long time to come, and is quite possible that, come the end of the year, one of our best dishes will have been taken here. 

Whenever we go to a new place, we always want to eat as locally and typically as possible, and the trouble is that a lot of high end restaurants, particularly when situated within hotels, tend to be the kind of mishmash "modern European" cuisine which, no doubt, is fabulously delicious, but not of its place. Which is why we were delighted that All'Oro offered a "Classics" tasting menu. 

It looked deceptively short and simple, for which we were grateful after a few days of quite intense consumption courtesy of our friend A. However, what we had failed to account for was the fact that All'Oro take their appetisers EXTREMELY seriously. There were twelve in total - all bite size, yes, but twelve of the richest most delicious bites known to greedy man. Having reached the end, we already felt like we had had a substantial meal. A couple of highlights:

This was the restaurant's "take" on a Caesar salad. A Caesar salad biscuit. So pretty, but so intense with umami flavour (I like the fact that you can see my notebook creeping into the back of the shot here. Also, you can't see it from this angle, but the dish in which these biscuits were served was actually the hollowed head of a Roman emperor. So clever!)

The Panzanella sphere - ohhhh. This needed to be eaten in a single bite as the centre was liquid essence of tomato. Again, as beautiful to look at as it was to eat. D and I couldn't stop grinning for a good couple of minutes after this one.

The meal proper kicked off with a "savoury tiramisu". I will admit to being slightly wary - I enjoy a good tiramisu but can sometimes find them to be lacking in texture. Here, crispy pork cheek was used to bring that much needed textural variety to a light as air potato foam and meltingly soft cod. The gentle bitterness of the cocoa powder was also welcome. 

All'Oro's take on a carbonara is probably one of the most delicious things I have eaten in a while. Again, crispy bacon was used to bring texture to cloud like layers of pecorino and parmesan cream, and the bite of the black pepper ensured that the dish was not too cloying. The egg shell presentation was whimsical without being twee.

Of two pasta dishes proper, it was the second that was our favourite - a cappelletti filled with a delicious savoury consommé which popped in the mouth, flooding it with flavour. 

There may have been flagging at this point, and the oxtail rocher, while delicious, was incredibly rich and the accompanying celery gelee failed to offer the relief of any acidity to cut through it.  Still, I thought, just dessert to come but...no. While All'Oro's take on a classic tiramisu was as fantastic as you might it expect, it did not signal the end of the meal. Instead...petits fours. And, like the appetisers, these were taken very seriously indeed. I can't resist sharing a picture of the doll with candyfloss hair, even if I was almost on the point of either weeping or swearing off food for life.

So, All'Oro. Amazing. Next time (and I can't imagine going to Rome and not making a return trip here) we plan to try the other tasting menu which appears to be slightly less rooted in Roman tradition, which, judging by some of the dishes mentioned on the a la carte, could prove extremely interesting. I cannot recommend it highly enough in terms not just of food but exemplary, fabulous service. I just beseech you - make sure that, when you go, you are EXTREMELY hungry.

When in Rome (eat as the Romans do)

Pretty much every main meal we ate in Rome, we tried to seek out restaurants doing Roman food - sometimes traditional and sometimes a more modern spin but always rooted in the rich culinary tradition of the city.

We were there in the springtime, so it was the season of the carciofi (artichoke); a troublesome vegetable that I've never really bothered with at home. But, partly due to the variety grown over there, and partly due to the time, trouble and copious amounts of oil employed in cooking them, these were a genuine delight, rendered almost creamy in flavour and texture. They seem to like to put them in a lot of things: sandwiches, pasta and even tossed through a plate of simply cut and shredded meat to make a surprisingly rich main course.

The classic pasta dishes of Rome, the mainstays of every menu, appear to be carbonara (cheese, guanciale, egg), cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) and gricia (cheese and guanciale). The pasta that we ate was definitely firmer than we tend to have it in Britain - not crunchy but definitely exhibiting that classic, if elusive, description of "al dente". And the dishes were a bit saucier than I tend to cook them which was interesting to note. 

Offal also plays a big part in Roman cuisine. Oxtail popped up on most menus - including the most beautiful, rich, sticky bowl of oxtail risotto which is definitely one to recreate at home. On our final evening, we tried the local delicaies of Roman style tripe and pork tendons. I try not to be squeamish about food but, I must admit, I had struggled with the idea of trip when our good friend A had proposed it earlier in the trip, but when it turned up on a tasting menu it was only right to try it. And reader, although it probably won't make my top ten dishes of the year, it was very tasty indeed (although I think that is mainly down to the delicious sauce it was tossed through; that quiveringly pallid Yorkshire dish of tripe and onions still carries no appeal whatsoever). The tendons, to the right of the picture, were lightly pickled and, although the texture was slightly odd, were very interesting to eat.

La bella vita - a sojourn in Rome

We've just got back from a lovely few days in Rome. Despite forecasts to the contrary, we basked in glorious sunshine, walked our feet off and ate. Oh my word, how we ate. We ate so much that for two days after we got back we consumed little more than toast which we nibbled at like Victorian consumptives. Roman food is RICH.

We went with an Italian friend, A, who lived in the city for five years while studying. We asked him to show us "typical" Roman food and he did us absolutely proud, taking his mission extremely seriously. And so as well as an abundance of typically Roman restaurant dishes (highlights to follow in a future post) we also sampled the wares of a local market, had three cone gelato, enjoyed the deep fried delights of Roman "suppli" and learned that Romans take their biscuits extremely seriously.

This is a selection of the wares from La Biscottificio Artigiano Innocenti, a noted local bakery. To describe these as biscuits is selling them somewhat short. 

Here we see an example of a typical Roman street food, a suppli. This particular one consisted of rice in a rich tomato sauce with a generous amount of mozzarella at the centre. Gorgeous. Elsewhere, we also tried a cacio e pepe version; deep fried cheesy pasta is just as dirty and delicious as you might expect.

Testaccio market is a must visit for a foodie in the city. We spent a very pleasant hour or so drinking wine and eating cheese at one particular stall, and also bought a few bits to take home including a fabulous deli meat called Ciauscolo, which is best described as a sort of spreadable Mortadella. 

This gelato is from a shop called Torce. It has been awarded three cones, which is the ice cream equivalent of three Michelin Stars and it was absolutely divine. Our only sadness was that we didn't have time to try more than a few flavours (but definitely one to seek out and revisit in the future). On A's advice I tried the vanilla (the benchmark of the true gelato master), paired with a beautifully sharp and vivid scoop of raspberry. D went pistachio, strawberry and, in a stroke of maverick genius, cream of habanero chilli (some of the flavours were a little...eccentric). Magnifico. 

Inver in springtime

A quick trip up to Scotland to blow out some cobwebs this weekend. A brief sojourn in Carlisle (not a place I would recommend as a foodie destination, but it does boast the most splendiforous secondhand bookshop) on the way to a night at our beloved Inver, a fabulous restaurant with rooms cum sanctuary that looks out over Loch Fyne. I'm sure I've written about it before, and if I haven't then mea culpa indeed because it is one of our very favourite places to eat.

The chef there has done stages in all manner of high-end places, including a (practically obligatory nowadays) stint at Noma. And the kind of food she cooks is very much of the same sort of sensibility - this is food that is seasonal and local and ingredient-centric but with the odd little twist or flourish that makes you go "Hmmmm" and then, more often than not, "Yum." It can be challenging sometimes, the combinations are unusual, but we have never been disappointed by the food in the five years that we have been making the trip.

This, I think, was the first time that we have been to Inver in the spring and the menu was heaving with glorious shellfish which very much floated our boats.

Snacks to start - oysters in sea buckthorn oil, cured mackerel, cockles in a pickled gel, crab on barley bannock. Fresh and lip smacking, and slipped down very easily with a glass of chilled fizz.

The garden plate - literally, greens from the garden (here, kale and goosefoot) which had just been shown the grill to give a hint of char and then served with a miso mayonnaise which rich sweetness. Makes one see the point of vegetables when they're served like this.

The Scallop and langoustine were so fresh and sweet that they required no intervention from the kitchen - served raw, they melted in the mouth, while the accompanying salad of young broccoli added crunch and a slight bitterness.

The dish of the night - brown crab meat on a buttery celeriac terrine, a salad of apple and white crab and then a creamy fermented celeriac sauce of dreams. It looks so modest in the photo; it tasted absolutely heavenly. Balanced to perfection - and I often find brown crab dishes to be too rich and sickly for my palate.

A feast of pig - loin, head, glazed belly and garlicky sausage with a zingy pickled celery and fennel salad to wake up the palate in between glorious, fatty mouthfuls.

Lanark blue cheese with chicory, chicory jam and gingerbread. I love it when restaurants only serve one cheese for the cheese course, especially when the treatment is so thoughtful and surprisingly delicious. 

A quick palate cleanser of blood orange and beeswax. I loved this, by turns bitter and sweet; D found the texture of the candied blood orange a little challenging.

Poached pear with walnut ice cream and walnut streusel and a sauce of pear juice shot through with the warmth of ginger and pepper. Another very unassuming looking dish that delivered fabulous alternating layers of succulence and spice.

Petits fours: chocolate cream on sea lettuce (frankly, challenging) and beautifully warm madeleines dusted with bay sugar (not in the least challenging; could have inhaled a bucketful even after a full meal).

Of all the meals we have had at Inver, this may have been the best yet. We are already plotting the next trip.

Inver Restaurant

Strathlachan

Strachur

Argyll & Bute

PA27 8BU

01369 860537

The world opens...Foodie in Paris

I celebrated a big birthday during the first December of the pandemic. One of those big ones that end with a zero and mean, unless you're a better man than me, you feel like spending the day in bed drinking wine and weeping at the passing of time and general futility of existence. It was not a good time to celebrate a birthday although I have to say that my lovely husband and Mum and Dad pulled out a number of stops to make sure that the day was well marked. Still, we had originally planned to celebrate with a trip to Paris. And D was determined to make sure that we made it, even if a bit late. So it was, he colluded with the parentals, and arranged a surprise trip to take place in late January 22. When it came to it, it was a close run thing as to whether or not we'd be able to go given that the French borders didn't open until a couple of weeks before, but go we did and, just like that, the world (or, rather, my world) seemed to be a little more open again.

The Eiffel Tower...as seen from the Pont des Arts

I adore Paris and think it lays claim to being the most beautiful city in the world (although I am easily swayed). And, it goes without saying, that if you enjoy good food and wine it is an absolute embarrassment of riches - although always worth doing your research since, as with every major city, it is easy to fall into over priced and underwhelming tourist traps. D takes his holiday research very seriously, and we had a detailed itinerary which mainly consisted of restaurants and places to buy food.

Of the four main meals, we had one disappointment. Benoit, a one Michelin starred outpost of the Alain Ducasse empire, serves up proper, high end, classical bistro fare, of that there is no doubt. But it is expensive. The wine list is eye watering. And the service was lacking throughout to the extent that after a 90 minute wait, we cancelled desserts and demanded the bill (and had to do so three times before the message got through). Perhaps we caught them on a bad night (although we clocked that the tables around us did not seem to be having any issues) but we won't be returning. There are plenty other of places to visit.

Like Frenchie, which I think was probably my favourite new find of the trip and one I would urge you to seek out if you find yourself there. It's tiny - maybe twenty or so covers crammed into a limited space - and, historically, quite difficult to book. It's one of those places where you get what you're given but, as soon as the first dishes arrive, you don't care because you know you're in the safest of safe hands. 

We weren't even given a copy of the menu at the end, so I have to rely on my phone notes which mainly consist of exclamation marks and yummy words. I do know that our top dish was one of butternut squash gnocchi, sitting on a butternut squash puree and topped with a crisp crumb and a lardo emulsion. There were plenty of familiar flavours - squash, bacon, sage, garlic but it was the contrast of textures that really made the dish. The gnocchi had, I think, been pan fried after steaming so that, while soft and yielding in the middle, were almost toffee like on the outside. There was crunch and velvet, all in one mouthful. A really fine example of modern cooking, with a seasonal vegetable taking centre stage.

Squash!

The dessert also made for a very happy pair of gluttons - peanut sable, chocolate ganache, cocoa crisps, peanut ice cream and a touch of salted caramel. Yes, it was a high end Snickers. But again, it was the playfully contrasting textures that really elevated this classic combinations of flavours. We ate it mostly in silence and then D, surveying his empty plate, declared that a chocolate and peanut dessert is probably his favourite sort of dessert. Bold words. We seldom commit to favourites in our household.

Chocolate and peanut!

We also revisited a favourite venue from our last trip - the gorgeous Cinq Mars, which is located very close to the Musee D'Orsay, tucked away down a quiet, unassuming street. Another classic bistro but without an offensive price tag. Unfortunately, I can't find the website to link at the moment but a quick Google search will find it. The terrine starter is worth the trip alone (they bring along the serving bowl and allow you to help yourself. Suffice to say that D got through an entire basket of bread taking full advantage of this). 

Terrine!

The service was charming and the wine list comprehensive. It's really the kind of thing you (or rather I) imagine when I close my eyes and think about dining in the fictional Paris where the moon is always full and a plaintive accordion is always playing a few streets away.