To the country, away from Venice!

Do you know how I see in advance if a Michelin restaurant’s going to be good or not? Simple: if it’s located in the middle of nowhere, in an empty field, without a view, but with blank walls with no windows, and has had two stars for a really long time, just like this place, which actually has been open for 50 years already (the year is the anniversary), everything will be fucking awesome.

After all, no one will ever drag oneself into the cornfields and/or tractor factories in the evening, wearing diamonds and with family, paying 165 EUR for one person – eventually, there should be a reason for all this “whooozhh”!

Looking ahead, I have to say that there really is a good reason!

As we were approaching, we saw that the restaurant met all the requirements: there was a hangar/field/tractor there, and a road to the right, and a house with no windows to the left (but let’s put it straight, the house had a perfect garden and a polished yard).

At the entrance, we find ourselves in a piece of Japan: maples, a bridge, maples, bamboo – though it’s very contemporary – everything’s strictly geometric. We face the door with a bell, a glass door, but it’s closed – hello!

We enter.

Now I have to make a digression: why is a gastro critic worse than, for example, a film critic? The former causes more damage.

Indeed, it’s been a while since anyone truly wanted to watch the “best film of the year” which received an Oscar, something like Moonlight, for Christ’s sake, because everyone knows for sure: this will be some imprudent faggot’s dick, which is interesting exclusively for certain members of Oscar voters. Still if someone has started watching the film, it can always be turned off and/or changed for something else. It’s even possible to leave the auditorium and jump into the next one, if you’re in the cinema.

Speaking about multi-star restaurants, it’s the same “faggot’s dick” in half of the cases, but it has to do with food. And you won’t be able to fucking turn it off – you’ll have to pay your 500EUR or more for two people and as well spoil the night for yourself and for your vis-à-vis. “You’ve ordered it, now you have to eat it!” (c).

Therefore, gastro criticism is the most harmful specialization of the profession.

So there we were, walking towards our table, ready to pour 750EUR down the drain or to spend it on an “I’m lucky!” thing.

And we were lucky that day.

The design met us with void and perfect zoning: opaque cloth shields, which didn’t even reach the floor, divided the hall into three rooms and, if needed, could organize the space in different ways, transforming it into a chamber or a banquet hall. One could feel some incompleteness there, though a pleasant one.

Then the light: there’s only one source of light above each table, but what a good one! It creates a very soft light spot in the center of the table with PERFECT shadows, and this light decreases towards the edges, drowning the guests in the semidarkness and leaving the food on the forestage. It’s visible in the pictures below.

Ok, I say to myself, special effects alone can’t fully satisfy one’s hunger… and here we go.

First, there was an aperitif: the cocktails form the short menu, which suddenly turned out to be mad tasty, complicated, multilayered, and still leaving waves of aftertastes behind.

Then they served bread that looked like a soloist on a stage in a spotlight.

It was a sabotage. You know, such kind of bread, true bread of all bread, so that you sit there and look at it and persuade yourself:

“No, no, no, no, no and no. I won’t eat it. Right now, I’m on a diet. Oh well, but what would happen if I had only one piece, with some olive oil…”

Oh, how fast the loaf came to its end! (c).

Let’s move on: there’s some fucking awesome crudo of 8 kinds of fish and seafood with algae sauce, the quality of which is high to such an extent that you can distinguish lobster from scampi even with your eyes shut.

By the way, they easily changed three courses in the set for my mom as she doesn’t eat raw stuff. So, instead of crudo festival they threw some unbearably delicious analogue of deconstructed bouillabaisse in front of her.

Incredible cold pasta with tartare of gamberi rossi and mustard sauce, which activates all the taste buds and stays there like an echo till the next course.

Razor Clam soup in a glass, complicated by tomatoes and croutons.

Golden shrimp with tuna tartare, barely ‘frightened’ by fire, with a set of faery sauces/additives.

Then there was RISOTTO with raw scampi and tomatoes (I had it added to the set only because of my greediness). “I wish I could always live this way” (c).

So this razzle-dazzle thing lasted till the desserts, with a slight “failure” in the form of turbo bread, but oh well, it should be forgiven.

Finally, there was a trio of desserts. I’m not into desserts at all, so I was drinking digestives.

Overall, it’s worth a trip – well-assembled, smart and mad tasty food – it’s definitely worth its 165eur for a set.

PS: And yes, 90% of people around us were Italians. Admit it, this means a lot. You won’t fuck them over. They aren’t Chinese tourists.