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This is the blog of Steve Burkett of Italy, Our Italy

Michelin-Starred Experiences

The original Michelin Red Guide, French Edition

Last week I explained how the Michelin stars are awarded to restaurants in Italy…and I also explained that many of our favorite Italy restaurants aren’t even in the Michelin guide at all.

But today, I want to show you what you can expect when you dine at a starred restaurant in Italy. And, since I am writing this article, what I personally expect for my own dining experience ,so that my peculiar, I mean particular, expectations are met…or even exceeded.

So, here is what the Burketts expect as they dine with Italian stars!

First is Dressing Up

We like to dress up a bit when dining at a nice restaurant in Italy…and we don’t want to feel out of place because we did so. Three stars? Take the opportunity to get spiffed up.

And, speaking of dressing up, here is a photo of the two dapper gentlemen who started the Michelin guide, as well as the Michelin tire company…André and Édouard Michelin.

The View

If the evening is to be special, then a meal with a view would be nice. These are views from starred restaurants that we’ve visited.

Bread!

That’s right, bread! I tend to judge an Italian dining establishment by their bread. It needs to be nice and crusty. Grisini, or breadsticks, need to be house-made, not wrapped in a waxy, paper envelope. Here are examples of 3-star breads.

Presentation

This involves more than plating…it is how the food might be presented before plating, like this nice branzino presented by Elizabette at La Terrazza Danieli, just before it was fileted and deboned for serving. By the way, it is really a lot better looking after plating…and it tastes like no other seafood you’ve had.

Smiling Faces

I believe that you can judge a person by the way one treats the waitstaff at a restaurant. And, it’s much easier to relate to a smiling face, isn’t it?

A Bit of Music?

How about live music…and, with a smiling face, too…double your pleasure! And, it’s not often we’ve found such an amenity.

Table Settings

Of course a nice table is appreciated. And what a surprise it was to find an embroidered charger at our table at Ravello’s Il Flauto di Pan.

The Food

This is pretty much why we came, right? I know, the other things are nice, but the food is the star of the starred show.

Endings

Dessert has a special place in our dining experience. There are desserts in the ‘Food’ grouping above, but this one from La Caravella dal 1959 in Amalfi gets special attention. We thought this soufflé too large for two people when presented, but two was just too perfect not to finish. Being a soufflé, it was really lite…seriously…please don’t judge…you had to be there to appreciate it.

What’s All That Stuff on the Plate?

In my opinion, some restaurants on the Michelin-starred list try a bit too hard to embellish the plates with little dots of this-and-that (we call them ‘plops’), and special plates that are not necessary to one’s dining enjoyment. You will note a bit of simplicity in the photos of ‘Food’ above. Nice and clean.

However, here are a few Michelin-starred plates that we’ve been offered along the way where we think things were a bit messy and they were trying a bit too hard to impress, but didn’t. Give me the plating at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and I would have been happier.

A Parting Shot

But what about a Michelin-starred restaurant in the morning? Here is my selection from a typical buffet breakfast at Poggio Rosso at the fabulous Borgo San Felice. We took our breakfast with a mimosa out to the terrace and dreamed of coming back!

Breakfast at San Felice - is it too heavy with the bread…I don’t think so

So, there you see a few of the things that Ellen and I feel make up a scrumptious evening…or breakfast. But you know what? These meals are missing one thing…and that’s you.

We love to travel with friends, building memories along the way that we can reminisce about for years to come. I sincerely hope that you can join us in the future at a restaurant of Italy…or anywhere in the world, actually.

Ciao for now,

Steve

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Eat Here: Da Divo

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This hidden gem is in an out-of-the-way part of Siena, as you can see in the photo, below. If you can find Via Franciosa, look for number ‘25’. Making your way from the Piazza del Campo (at top left) to the Duomo (cathedral), you are almost there.

The red arrow marks the location of Da Divo

The unassuming entrance from the small street to Da Divo does not reveal what lies within…and below.

Scott suggests that it’s time to come in and eat

Da Divo is a most interesting restaurant. Its history is that it used to be an Etruscan dwelling or tomb. Going once again to a restaurant’s website, we see the description of their restaurant as “To dine in history of a suggestive and unique atmosphere, which goes from the Middle Ages to the Etruscans”. So, there you have it…right?

The Layout

After you enter through the street-level entrance of the restaurant, you will find three subterranean levels of the restaurant. In this photo, I am standing on the first subterranean level, with the entrance level to the top right. Down the steps to the left is the second subterranean level, and then further down (where the bare-bulb light glows) is the third subterranean level.

This is underground level two of Da Divo.

Photo taken from level 3, showing level 4

In this photo, you see the lowest, or third subterranean level, with couples enjoying the quiet atmosphere.

Dinner Time

OK, enough about the layout of the multi-level restaurant. Before we move to the food, it is time for that time-honored toast to friends, both present and absent…which includes you!

Here is a sampling of the good eats you find at Da Divo.

Cooked rice of risotto gathering up cheesy goodness

Here we had our first look at a unique way to make risotto. Normally, one will stir in Parmesan cheese when the rice is completely cooked. However, here at Da Divo, we see that the cooked rice is placed into a scooped out wheel of Parmesan cheese, gathering cheesy goodness as the rice is stirred. Man-oh-man…it was really yummy!

A Parting Glance

As we enjoyed our meal at Da Divo, I made the mistake of looking up. What I saw was the structural system that was holding up the roof. I would suggest that it has been doing its job for many, many years…so, don’t worry about the structural integrity as you dine. And, be sure to try the risotto.

The roof has been steadily sitting there for many years…not to worry

So, there you have one more meal in beautiful and tasty Italy. As you sit watching your risotto being stirred whilst it is in that scooped out wheel of Parmesan, look up at the face of the one doing the stirring…it just may be me!

Ciao for now,

Steve

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Eat Here: De Pisis

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Are you hungry right now? If you’re like me (and I certainly know I am), then you think about your next meal right after you finish the previous one.

A meal at today’s subject eatery is highly recommended…though you will need to travel to Venice to enjoy it…carry out or delivery just won’t work in this case.

De PIsis is located in the Hotel Bauer. This hotel is one of the up-scale hotels in Venice…a hotel for which we would not normally make a reservation. However, in 2004 we spent a January week in Venice and the Bauer’s rates were such that it was affordable. And yes, it was very nice, indeed. I’ll let you know more about a winter visit at another time.

We’ve dined at De Pisis for both lunch and dinner, and both were wonderful. But, our routine now is to arrive in Venice mid-morning, drop our bags at the Hotel Flora, and then immediately make our way a couple-of-hundred yards to the canal-side terrace of De Pisis, under the red canal-side awnings you see in the aerial photo.

It is such a lovely terrace, situated just where the Canale Grande (Grand Canal) enters the Bacino San Marco (St Mark’s Basin), with a view of the church of Santa Maria Della Salute in one direction and San Giorgio Maggiore in the other.

Today’s article will be short on verbiage and long on photos of the food and revelry of some of our visits. So, here goes.

A Toast to You and Yours!

As we always start our meals with a toast to friends both present and absent, that’s what we do here. Note the beautiful Santa Maria Della Salute in the background. This toast is with Debbie and Scott Kennedy. It is a rare event that Scott eschews wine for a beer…but it was a long, hard journey.

Another time and another toast with in-laws Leslie and Craig Johnson.

The particular toast above is made with Venica’s Ronco delle Cime, which is produced in the northern realm of the Veneto. The Veneto is the region in which Venice is located.

I love the way that Italian wine websites describe their wine ethic. Venica’s states that, “This wine wants to tell the story of a borderland with people and memories related to family’s values and to the region’s traditions.”

After our tasting, we understood the story.

And though we don’t always travel with friends, wife Ellen and I never fail to execute a toast to you.

Though we are pre-meal toasting here, we drank our prosecco throughout our meal.

And which prosecco did we demolish during this meal?

Banfi’s, of course! How does it taste? Let’s check their website. for a description. Oh here it is, “…an edgy, fresh peach and peppercorn-scented sparkler. It’s bright with the greenness of chlorophyll and a peppery burst in the end.” Hmm…bottom line…we like it!

And is that ‘B’ for Bauer, for ‘Banfi’, or for ‘Burkett’? We’ll never tell.

The Meals

Adam has come to tell us that our meal will be arriving “in un momento”.

In the background you can see the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, located on the Giudecca island.

And the meals are here! We’ll start with a salad and move on to the other savory dishes.

The Fish Course

And, let’s not forget a fish course…after all, we are sitting in the middle of a lagoon!

Dealing with a whole fish can be a formidable experience, right? Not so in Italy.

The typical routine is to present the cooked whole fish for your viewing pleasure, and then the fish is disassembled and de-boned tableside.

I don’t have a fish presentation photo from De Pisis, so I’ll use one where Elizabete makes the presentation at La Terrazza Danieli on the Hotel Danieli’s rooftop restaurant.

Our De Pisis waiter is carefully de-boning our fish selection.

And here is our plated fish dish, ready to be placed before us for our eating pleasure.

It’s Over

All good things come to an end…though I’m not too happy about it during this visit to De Pisis. Even the wait-staff seem to commiserate with my end-of-meal blues. The parsley? I’m just NOT going to eat that parsley.

We don’t always finish a meal with wine…sometimes we need a refreshing Coca Cola Lite, or Coke Zero. Ahhhh!

You will see Ellen and me traveling through Italy with friends in many of these articles. I wrote an article on ‘Traveling with Friends’ back in 2015. In that article, I included a short video giving you a whirlwind 3:28 glimpse into a 2012 trip to Italy. Here is that video, should you have missed it.

I hope you enjoyed your voyeuristic meal today at De Pisis as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you. And don’t forget…no carryout or delivery…you have to go in person. How about you join us the next time we’re there? Is it a date? But if your there on your own, be sure and make a reservation for the lunch-time terrace at the bottom of their web-page, here.

Ciao for now,

Steve

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Eat Here: Osteria and Trattoria Caprini

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What a night! It was magical. Tonight, we were welcomed into an Italian family!

Because we had both an osteria and a trattoria experience, I am breaking this article into two sections. Section1 focuses on Osteria Caprini, while Section 2 is about Trattoria Caprini.

To avoid a bit of confusion between the osteria part of this establishment, and the trattoria part, I’ll simply refer to the overall establishment of both the osteria and trattoria as ‘Caprini’…after all, they are both in the same building…just different doors.

Caprini’s Beginnings

In 1907, two young newlyweds decided to open Caprini, serving traditional dishes and Valpolicella wine in a simple and unpretentious manner. Four generations later, Caprini is still run by the same family…both as an osteria and a trattoria.

Torbe di Negrar is a small hill town surrounded by vineyards. Caprini is designated within the red circle on this aerial view.

Osteria Caprini

First, an osteria is like a tavern or corner pub. The food dishes are simple and the atmosphere is unpretentious. In other words, it’s casual and typically delish, but the menu is rather short.

We parked our rental car across the street from Trattoria Caprini in the Valpolicella-area hill town of Torbe di Negrar. Our intent was to go immediately to dinner at Trattoria Caprini, but as we crossed the street we were hailed with “Come down here!” from a small crowd outside the door to Osteria Caprini. Really, that’s what they were shouting over-and-over — “Come down here!”. What to do? We were in no hurry, so we said, “Sure!”, and we went down there to the entrance to Osteria Caprini.

What we found was Csaba’s birthday party. That’s Csaba to the left in this photo.

Csaba, Dennis, Patty and others were celebrating, and asked the four of us to celebrate with them. So, we did. Wine was offered and wine was gladly accepted.

Csaba is one of those remarkable people that you are instantly drawn to…a great smile and a welcoming spirit. Hungarian citizen Csaba works at the local NATO facility. Dennis retired from said facility awhile back. Patty is Dennis’ wife. Though they are Americans, Dennis and Patty have a house nearby…as well as this itsy-bitsy car that I’m inspecting.

We felt so much at home. We were among old friends, newly found for the first time. And, we were warmly welcomed with copious toasts of wine. It’s impolite to refuse wine, isn’t it? Plus, you know what the Romans say, right? “When in Italy, do what the Italians do!”

Here is wife Ellen, Patty, and sister-in-law Leslie.

And, behind the osteria’s bar was beautiful Maria (aka Mama Maria). She’s run the bar for many, many years. This lovely octogenarian was an excellent hostess.

See this early 20th century photo taken in front of Caprini? That’s baby Maria sitting in her mother’s lap!

We fell in love with Mama Maria because of her charm, graciousness and spirit. But also because she poured us a glass of Amarone produced by her husband and son.

This Corte Martini Amarone knocked our socks off! Really – one moment we had on socks, and the next moment, they were gone!

This wine was everything that brother-in-law Craig and I had been looking for in our two weeks in northern Italy -- put away the Barolo and pour us another glass of this awesome Corte Martini Amarone! [A further description of this Amarone and its equally outstanding Recioto partner will have to wait for another article.]

Also shown in the photo is the smaller bottle of Recioto della Valpolicella, which is a very tasty dessert wine.

Here are Csaba, Craig, me, and Dennis.

Are our glasses empty? Yes. That means it’s time for a refill.

Many celebratory things were uttered as we toasted and re-toasted Csaba’s birthday!

After an hour in the osteria, we bid Csaba and friends a final “Happy Birthday!”. And, with hugs all around, we said good bye to our new friends as we headed upstairs to dinner at Trattoria Caprini. It turned out that our pleasant evening was to continue.

Trattoria Caprini

The formality — or lack thereof — of a trattoria is much like that of an osteria, but the menu is more extensive and the decor is kicked up a notch.

Sergio, the family member who supervises the dining room and wine cellar led us through the menu and helped us make our decisions. My selection was also the local favorite of Lasagnette al Ragu della Pierina (that’s pasta with Pierina’s famous meat sauce). I dove right in and had eaten the whole thing before I remembered that I was going to photograph this dish! Dang! Trust me – it looked as good as it tasted.

Here are a couple of photos of other dishes eaten at our table.

The wine we ordered with dinner? Of course it was the Corte Martini Amarone. We just couldn’t stop toasting! We had now moved into the wine-drinking-excuse toasts.

Here you see brother-in-law Craig sitting beneath a painting of a part of the town of Torbe di Negrar. Trattoria Caprini is the building with the green awning on the left.

As mentioned in my article titled Eat Here: Enoteca della Valpolicella, we had purchased a book of Italian recipes during our trip. Lo and behold, the recipe for Pierina’s Lasagnette al Ragu Della Pierina is in that cook book. As we just happened to have it with us, we asked Pierina to autograph our copy, which she graciously did.

Here is chef Pierina posing with Leslie and Ellen.

And, once again, we get an autograph from an outstanding chef.

And surprise of surprises, that’s Pierina herself on the cover of our cookbook, making her homemade lasagnette pasta.

You can order this cookbook here — be sure to get the Italian-English version.

Do you have meals that you will always remember? Evenings where magic surely played a part in your enjoyment? This evening – with Csaba’s birthday party, Mama Maria’s charm and Pierina’s great food – is one of those for the four of us.

I hope that you can make your way 11 miles north of Verona to the town of Torbe di Negrar so that you can meet Maria, Sergio, Pierina and the rest of the family. And, if you are there on October 2nd, you will surely find Csaba and friends in the osteria celebrating another birthday. Hopefully, we’ll be there too. After all, we need to go back to get our socks!

Ciao for now,

Steve

p.s. Thanks to Silvia of Salvaterra Winery for recommending Trattoria Caprini

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Eat Here: Ristorante Verbano

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Ahhh…Lago Maggiore. And, how about sitting on a pleasant veranda enjoying a scrumptious lunch on the Isola dei Pescatori (Fisherman’s Island). So pleasant. That’s exactly what we experienced on our visit to Stresa on the shore of Lago Maggiore.

In my last article, I shared our experiences in the town of Stresa, which sits on the western shores of Lago Maggiore. Clicking on the map thumbnail to the right will familiarize you with the location of Lago Maggiore in comparison to the other lakes making up the Italian Lake District.

Today, we will relax a bit as we dine at Ristorante Verbano. That’s the restaurant in the photo, below. It is part of the Albergo Vergano. ‘Albergo’ is another way to say ‘hotel’ in Italian.

The dining terrace sits just behind the wall with “Albergo Ristorante” painted on it

We had hoped to stay here at this exquisite hotel on the island, but alas, we waited a bit too long to book a room. See my suggestion at the end of this article for a view of this charming albergo.

Getting There

As Ristorante Verbano sits on an island, we must arrive by boat.

Here comes our ride to Isola dei Pescatori.

This boat dock is situated just in front of our hotel, as explained in last week’s article.

Watch your head Ellen as you descend to the passenger area.

That’s a boat much like ours racing beside us.

See the two white car ferries in the background? We will be riding on one of those in a couple of days as we make our way east through the Lake District to Lago di Garda.

We are getting closer to lunch time as we approach our island dock.

Of course, there is more than just dining on the island.

Eating There

As the menu suggests, we are at Ristorante Verbano, the ‘restaurant on the island’.

But, first things first. It is time for our customary wine toast!

Hmmm…so many choices for just one meal. As we are on an island in a lake, seafood seems appropriate. On the left are the fish dishes, and on the right, the meat dishes. Today’s menu is presented in four languages.

I’ve made my lunch selection. And that is none-other than I, your scribe, enjoying my wine.

As I turn to look at the lake, this is what I see. A beautiful day on a beautiful lake of clear water.

Our food has arrived! And here it is.

Ellen’s selection is whitefish with lemon and capers. The fish is just-caught-that-morning fresh and comes right from the Lago Maggiore.

Notice how the fish has been shaped into a cylinder to form a base for the zucchini…a nice presentation.

Here are our other selections, including risotto and a tasty cheese course.

As we leave Ristorante Verbano, we can see our destination for tomorrow…but that’s another story.

Here are just a few photos from our walk back to our boat that will take us back to Stresa.

Our assurance of a safe boat ride back to Stresa!

A Suggestion for Right Now

I have a suggestion that I think you will appreciate. Take a quick look at the short introductory video on the home page of Albergo Ristorante Verbano’s web site. It presents you with a most pleasant way to start your day…and it will most assuredly give you cause to head to Isola di Pesciatore.

Just click right here and enjoy: Albergo Ristorante Verbano

That was an excellent meal. The location, the nice sunny day, the ambiance, the service, the food, the drink…all worked together to provide us with a memorable experience. An experience that I hope you can enjoy someday for yourself.

Ciao for now,

Steve