A Life Worth Eating

With only a few days left in my vacation, it was time to try arguably the most well-known restaurant in Italy among food-lovers worldwide. I had heard so much and read so much that I, in turn, expected so much from this meal. How could I not? Massimiliano Alajmo had earned two Michelin stars at the tender age of 22 back in 1996. The youngest chef ever to do so. Not one to be complacent, I suppose, he one-upped himself in 2002, earning three Michelin stars, the highest honor that organization can bestow on a restaurant. Again, at just 28, the youngest chef ever to attain that distinction. Now fast forward to 2007. What would the chef bring forth on my first visit to his restaurant? This was all I cared about, of course. For me, at the end of the day, all the ratings, rankings, and reviews in the world are secondary to what’s on my plate. So without further ado, let me jump right into it…Hello. My name is Aaron and I have a problem. When presented with several different menu options, like an uncontrollable reflex, I inevitably opt for the longest, most involved (and therefore often the most expensive) of the bunch. It was no surprise, then, that I chose the In.gredienti degustation menu for my lunch that day. With more courses (and more appealing courses, for that matter) than the Grandi classici (Grand classics) delle Calandre or Adesso (Now) menus, it was an easy decision. Priced at €200 before wine had even been discussed, the price of admission here is clearly no joke. They whisked my menu away, only to be quickly replaced by a copy I could take home. I liked that, as I undoubtedly would have asked for it later. I’m sure they get that all the time, hence the take-home copy. Prety soon, we were off…

While I sipped some prosecco (not to worry, oenophiles, I’ll mention all the wine specifics later), pretty soon some nibbles arrived. Crema di melanzana croccante and rollatino di pesce. The former was very tasty, a little fritter with a totally liquid eggplant center. (My mind happily drifted back to a meal at Manresa in Los Gatos, CA in August of 2006, with a sweet-corn version of the same thing). I didn’t understand the waiter as he mentioned what type of fish was in the middle of the little roll-up, but the outside was fresh anchovy. This was also a tasty little bite, but the liquid eggplant fritter was the star of the plate.

At this point, there is but one other diner in the restaurant besides myself, and she is on the complete opposite end of the room. Without any noise or commotion, and of course without flash, I proceeded to take a picture of the dish. Seconds later, one of the waiters came over to the table to say that Chef Alajmo asks that people not photograph his food. I know full well this is a crock of you-know-what. A guy in Venice I’d met three days prior had shown me the pictures still stored on his digital camera, and of course I’d seen tons of pictures published elsewhere online prior to the trip. Something about this really rubbed me the wrong way, for some reason. I was paying dearly for this food, and as far as I’m concerned, if I’m not bothering anyone else, how I choose to remember the meal is up to me. But enough venting. I’ll move on now.

Another amuse-bouche arrived. Don’t quote me on this, as I again had trouble understanding the description, but here’s what I tasted: A slightly toasted cube of bread, parsley foam, watermelon, and almond-anchovy gelato. What’s up with that combination?, you may ask. You tell me, as I certainly didn’t get it. The textures of bread and watermelon don’t exactly play nice together if you ask me, and while I enjoyed the salty-sweet, warm-cold contrast of the dish, I thought the flavors in the dish just didn’t sing. Strange beginning to the meal.

Many different kinds of housemade breads, breadsticks and crackers arrived, stacked like a sculpture on the plate. Frankly, they were all pretty bad. Certainly not what I would expect from a restaurant of this caliber. I left most of it untouched.

The first official course then arrived. Al Aimo: pomodoro, olio, ricotta, fave, pane, fagiolini, basilico, peperoncino (dedicato ad Aimo Moroni). A tribute to one of Milan’s most respected chefs, Aimo Moroni, this dish was one based about 99.9% on the quality of the ingredients and nothing else. The tomatoes were sweet and delcious. The ricotta, fresh and milky. The fava beans (puréed) and green beans (in small chunks) were vibrantly colored and flavorful. The olive oil was Sicilian, and quite good. The “bread” in this case was actually pane carasau, a thin crisp flatbread from Sardinia. Just enough peperoncino added to wake up the taste buds with a spicy top note. Very enjoyable dish overall.

Next came Millefoglie di mare: sandwich croccante di pane con baccalà mantecato, insalata d’alghe e maionese di gamberi e scampi. A towering dish of phyllo dough layered with some different things: whipped salt cod; seaweed salad; a “mayonnaise” made with pureed shrimp and scampi; and Italian caviar. The quality of the caviar wasn’t particularly good; it acted only as a means to re-salt the dish, and unfortunately nothing more. The baccala and the seafood were both tasty, but the phyllo dough may as well not have been there at all, so overwhelmed by too much filling as it was. There was not enough textural contrast in the dish, and the monotonous creamy-salty taste just got boring by the end.

Things took a better turn with the next course, Capelli d’angelo con crudo di triglie, oratine, alici, seppie e crostacei. Lightly chilled angel hair pasta, served with pieces of various raw fish: red mullet, sea bream, anchovy, shrimp and lobster. This was all sauced lightly with crema d’aragosta, a lobster reduction enriched with cream. It would seem that the sauce might cover up some of the delicacy of the fish, but that wasn’t the case at all. It complimented everything well. Very refreshing and tasty dish. The fish and crustaceans were all impeccably fresh. Maybe the best course of the meal.

Next up was Carne cruda sulla corteccia…versione estiva. Four small mounds of raw beef served on this ridiculous-looking wooden half-log (”corteccia“=bark). I can appreciate a playful presentation when I see one, but I found this one to be pretty stupid, frankly. Anyhoo, each mound of meat (the shoulder meat from mature Piemontese Fasson cattle, not veal as I had assumed) was sauced with a different fruit flavoring. “Fruit?!,” you may ask. Yes, I wondered why, too. Believe me. All of them were way too sweet. The first, mango; then passion fruit; apricot; and raspberry. If you took away the cloyingly sweet accompaniments, the meat was fine. But I, too, know how to chop meat. I don’t really want or need to pay $300 for someone else to do it for me. I found all of the fruit accompaniments to be unnecessary and useless. But just in case there weren’t enough sweetness on the plate already, there was a piece of watermelon meant to cleanse the palate. Of course. I can see how, after all that sweetness, one might need something sweet to, uh, get rid of the sweet taste. Oh wait…

The fruit unfortunately continued. Next came a dish of Risotto con le conchiglie, rosmarino e frutto della passione. Risotto with “shells” (shellfish), including mussels, clams, and I can’t quite remember what else. Why is it that I can’t remember anything else? Well, the seafood was futile against the fruity, herbal onslaught form the passion fruit and rosemary. I must have missed some sort of memo, because I just had no idea where the chef was trying to go with this dish. I began to think about dessert, not because I necessarily wanted it yet, but because I felt like I’d already been eating it with the last two courses!

Next up: Fegato grasso d’oca caramellata, salsa di albicocche e curry, polvere di grano tostato e menta. Okay, now he’s just messing with me. Seriously. Where’s the hidden camera? Seared goose foie gras with a sweet apricot/curry sauce, a pile of toasted wheat powder, a tiny chiffonade of fresh meat, and paper-thin pane carasau on top of it all, for a little more textural contrast. The foie gras was cooked well. I will give him that much. The top had a nice sear, giving way to creamy deliciousness underneath. The accompaniments for the goose liver, though, didn’t really do much for me. The foie-gras-and-fruit combination is certainly not a new one, but I thought this course, just like the previous two, veered too much in the sweet direction. I found myself pushing the sauce and accompaniments to the side and just eating the foie gras by itself. Shame.

Following the foie gras was the Filetto impanato ma non cucinato: carpaccio spesso, rotolato nel pane su salsa speziata d’ouvo e succo di rape rosse. Breaded, but not cooked, beef filet. In this case, a very thin, carpaccio-style slice, rolled in coarse toasted bread crumbs similar to panko. This rested on a spiced sauce enriched with egg yolk, and beet juice. Surprise, surprise. This course was sweet, too. But at least this time it was more under control, as the beet’s sweetness, especially, has a bit more earthiness to it, and the egg yolk present in the other sauce helped make that more rich and savory as well. I liked the textural contrast of the tender raw meat and the coarse breadcrumbs. This was a dish I quite enjoyed.

The last meat course came with the Piccione di Sante arrostito con il suo pate di fegatini, indivia alla amarene e gorgonzola. I like how the Italians just call a spade a spade. None of the common “squab” euphemism you see on menus in the US when referring to pigeons we happen to be eating instead of feeding breadcrumbs in the park. This pigeon was stuffed with a pate made from its liver, and then roasted. Accompanying the bird was endive with slightly sour cherries and slightly strong gorgonzola. This was a pretty nice dish, with strong flavors abound. I found myself eating the bird and the endive separately, but in this case, at least each was quite tasty on its own. And with that, it looked like it was time to move toward the (purposefully) sweeter end of the meal.

But not before a little bit of cheese. The carrello dei formaggi, or cheese cart, had not yet made its appearance at my table, so I was excited for it. After a great explanation of what they had to offer, most of which was new to me, I enjoyed a selection of seven different cheeses. Excuse any mistakes I’ll inevitably make in recalling the names correctly, but my notes say: plin alla canella (cinnamon); tuma d’la paja (soft, creamy, matured under straw, Piemontese); fiorile (rolled in flowers, flavored with garlic); affinato alla grappa di mele (flavored with apple grappa); golden gel (cow’s milk, flavored with the skins and seeds of wine grapes, spicy/sweet/bitter all at once); gran sardo (sharp, sheep’s milk cheese from Sardinia); blu delle cozie (sheep’s milk blue, from the Alps of Piemonte). These were served with a few accompaniments: a spicy onion mostarda, a sweeter prune & sumac jam, and honey. This was a nice selection overall, and I’m always happy to try cheeses that are new to me. My favorites that afternoon were the plin alla canella, golden gel, and gran sardo (the only one among the bunch that I’d had before).

Dessert time. Or more specifically, pre-dessert. Sorbetto di sedano verde. Celery sorbet. By itself, no other flavors present. I understand this is supposed to cleanse the palate, but come on now. A Michelin 3-star kitchen can do better than that. Really. The serving was enough for a few bites, but one was plenty.

Moving on to the actual dessert, “Costrizioni” al cioccolato - gioccolato 2007. Chocolate “Constraints” — chocolate “game” 2007. Essentially, this “game” was to explore how our consumption of chocolate changes from childhood through adulthood through our elderly years. Cool idea. Ridiculous presentation. Wheeled out on a big wooden toy car, stacked high with a child’s building blocks. One of the components of the dish was even presented in a baby bottle, so that one must suck out the contents. Fine dining at its best, this dish. I assume that Chef Alajmo is trying to assert that there are too many constraints that we place on what can be done with chocolate, as some of these combinations were a bit strange. There was a lot going on in this dish, so I’ll divide my description into two parts. Let’s start with the things that tasted good: liquid-chocolate filled bonbon topped with gold leaf; Nutella and cream wafer sandwich; chocolate with liquid mint filling; beet gelee and white chocolate cream; baby bottle filled with warm cinnamon-flavored chocolate; bittersweet chocolate “cigar”; cherry granita with just a bit of chocolate mixed in here and there. And then there were the things that were, well, pretty bad: tepid coffee served in a shot glass atop a hazelnut-chocolate cream; an airy chocolate and saffron meringue; lettuce leaf with white chocolate, salt, and pepper; curried chocolate mousse. Aside from the baby bottle and the cigar, god only knows which of these dishes are for the young or the old typically. There’s no telling. At least 7 of 11 components were good, though. The success rate could’ve been worse, I suppose.

Winding down now, it was time for caffè and piccola pasticceria, the petit fours of the meal. With my espresso, there were several small treats brought out. Coconut-and-mint liquid-filled chocolate; liquid-mint-filled chocolate cup; a few pieces of 70% cacao bittersweet chocolates; and “sweet” grissini (only in quotes as I couldn’t nail down the flavor. It was chocolate and something else that was a bit strange.) These were pretty good, but by this point, my only thought was “Enough with the chocolate already”. But that, my friends, was that.

I should comment a bit on the wine. It is no exaggeration to say that the recommended selection for this meal was the most enjoyable progression of wines I had on the trip. I chose to do it by the glass to avoid selling the clothes off my back to pay for the pairing. But even for a novice like me, I found the wine service to be fantastic. For those who are curious, I had the following wines:

Ca’ del Bosco Franciacorta Saten 2002 (Lombardia) €12
Franciacorta Brut Cabochon Rosé 2001, Monte Rossa (Lombardia) €18
Capitel Croce 1999, Anselmi (Veneto) €8
Pathos 2004, Santa Barbara (Le Marche) €12
Moscato Fior d’Arancio Passito 2003, La Montecchia (Veneto) €9

So what about some overall thoughts on the meal? As I’m sure this long-winded review probably hints at throughout, I can sum up my take on the meal pretty easily: A few high points, interspersed with far too many low ones. Overall, very underwhelming. Does price factor into that? Of course. When I pay €268 for a meal, I’d like it to be exceptional. This one just wasn’t. The savory courses tended to be too sweet. The sweet ones, perhaps too savory. The ingredients, as evidenced in the delicious Al Aimo and Capelli d’angelo con crudo di mare dishes, were well-sourced and top-notch. Clearly, the chef is a skilled shopper. And no doubt, a skilled cook, too. I don’t think it was the execution I found issues with, but rather the combinations of ingredients. Many times, I felt he was just trying too hard to be different, to be new, to be exciting. Forgetting what should be the main point…to make it delicious.

Will I be back? Maybe someday, but I’m certainly not in the slightest hurry. Chef Alajmo has earned so much praise for his work already and I have no doubts he will continue to earn more as the years pass. But my meal that afternoon was an indication that this restaurant, perhaps, is just not my coppetta di tè.