MARIANI’S

  JULY 24, 2005                                                        NEWSLETTER

Menu Cover from Al Gatto Nero, Turin, Italy, 1976

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IN THIS ISSUE

 

      
      I can well imagine it was at a restaurant like La Pergola (Via Cadlolo 101; 39-063-5091)  that Stendahl observed, “From the table I am writing at I can see three-quarters of Rome and before me on the side of the city the Dome of St. Peter’s soaring majestically.  Nothing on earth can compare.”  For that is exactly the panorama you have from a table at La Pergola, atop Monte Mario, within the Cavalieri Hilton Hotel.
      The wine cache holds 50,000 bottles (some dating to 1848), maintained by sommelier Marco Reitano, who might well be persuaded to show you the astounding catacomb-like cellar (below).  There is also a choice of 20 Italian mineral waters and a 10-page tea and coffee menu. Generously proportioned tables are set with Murano glassware (the glass show plates were cast seven times before being approved) and Bernardaud china. At meal's end petit-fours come in a handcrafted sterling silver chest of drawers.
    All of this is a fitting backdrop for the immense talents of German-born chef Heinz Beck, here since 1994, who fell in love with both Roman cooking and a Roman girl, Teresa, whom he married and to whom he dedicated his first cookbook, Beck (2001)—“ever near, ever supportive, sharing my passion for my work”—in which he crystallizes the way he marries traditional Roman cookery to his own northern European sensibility.  “I believe I can transmit enjoyment, pleasure, delight and serenity,” he writes, “the same emotions I experience when I am in the kitchen. . . . I am always searching for new combinations of flavors and textures, new solutions and surprises which respect both the local cuisine and Italy’s heritage [and] using innovative cooking techniques [and] avant-garde equipment permits me to maintain the intrinsic values of many foods.”  Every word of this credo is evident in everything Beck composes. He cooks with daunting gentleness, or what the Italians call sprezzatura—the art of concealed art.
          The ornate but splendidly decorated dining room overlooks St. Peter’s in the distance below.  A selection of iced Champagnes and spumante is wheeled to your table on a silver cart.  The wine list is presented in two volumes--one Italian ( including 40 different Gaja Barbarescos and 15 vintages of Sassicaia) and an extraordinary volume of international wines, including more than 40 of Lafite-Rothschild (dating back to 1922), 11 of Pétrus (to 1945) and a dozen Cheval Blancs. There are also four pages of half-bottles and 11 of large format bottles.
         The range of Beck's seasonally-driven menus is amazing, and while it is among the most refined cuisine in Italy, with plenty of international ingredients, it is still decidedly Italian.  (By the way, La Pergola has two Michelin stars.)  Still, there are all sorts of unexpected flavors here, as when we began our meal with a cocktail of celery juice, Granny Smith apple juice and ginger ale, followed by a creamed cauliflower purée with a tiny cheese stick, a morsel of guinea fowl with shreds of fried potatoes, and a carpaccio of beets and tuna with wasabi gelatine.
   Appetizers might include a panaché of San Pietro (John Dory) with a warm basil vinaigrette, and one of Beck’s many signature items--veal tail “La Pergola,” served  atop cooked tomatoes and celery--a very subtle, very refined dish that turns on the  old, very hearty Roman dish called coda alla vaccinara, made with oxtail.  The sweetest, most golden zucchini flowers of the summer were coated with a zucchini-and-onion batter, deep fried and served in a shellfish and saffron consommé of crystal clarity and depth of flavor, garnished with tiny quail eggs and beluga caviar.
         Pastas are inventive and gloriously presented: Fagottelli “La Pergola” are translucent pasta pockets  filled with sautéed vegetables and set a broth that bursts in your mouth. Fennel ravioli with anchovies is an assertive dish but not overpowering.
        For fish courses I've had a fillet of triglia (red mullet)  topped with crisp potatoes, with baby vegetables cooked in a broth and a small pea soufflé on the side, and an émince of turbot with a liqueur-like vinaigrette  reduced with minced vegetables.
          For the meat course Beck might serve a saddle of the most tender rabbit,  cooked in a pastry-covered casserole with mushrooms, artichokes, chestnuts, and prunes macerated in Armagnac.  The glass casserole is brought to the table, the crust parted with delicate grace, and the steaming, aromatic contents were set graciously on the plate.  Squab breast and a purée made from the bird’s thigh meat and mushrooms is topped with a dice of fresh foie gras and cooked in a crépinette made from spinach leaves, served with a light mustard sauce.  A "composition" of veal with avocado and tomato in a spinach bundle is tour de force of mild and tangy flavors.
          Then follows a superb selection of cheeses, with a choice of half a dozen balsamic vinegars to drizzle over them. Desserts seem almost old-fashioned by comparison with the rest of the meal--a coffee soufflé with coffee ice cream, and a walnut parfait on a bed of apples, followed by those silver drawers of petit-fours and chocolates.
     An evening at La Pergola is a rare thing (and not inexpensive), but it is one you are not likely to forget and one you will want to repeat whenever you are in the Eternal City and the sun is setting on the Seven Hills.
     Appetizers and pastas run €30 ($33 to €39 ($42); main courses, €44 ($47) to €49 ($52); Gourmet Tasting Menus, €120 ($133) and €135 ($150). Beck has published two cookbooks, available through www.heinzbeck.com.

     In so many ways Vissani (SS 448 Todi-Baschi; 39 0744 950206) is very different and yet very close in spirit to La Pergola.  The Vissani in question is Gianfranco Vissani (left, center, with American guests), who apparently has made such a success of his books, products, cooking classes, and TV shows, that he can run his restaurant precisely the way he wishes, even if he gets few customers to ferret out his place, whose nearest town is Baschi. Set beside a broad lake  in the hillsides of Umbria, Vissani is best located by stopping people in the region and simply asking "Dove è Vissani?  Everyone knows.
     The restaurant (also with two Michelin stars) stretches like an Italian  ranch house amidst a flourishing garden, and you enter through a graceful gateway from the road.  You are greeted by a formally attired wait staff, which includes Vissani's son, Luca.  There is a spotless open kitchen, its window framed on the outside, brightly lighted, hung with copper pots, and expanses of glass to allow the Umbrian sun to pour through. The interior of the restaurant has basically three rooms, a lounge area with sofas and books and sculpture (below), a dining room that is light, airy, and set with exquisite amenities, and a room in which to take one's dessert and coffee.  Classical music plays softly in the background.  And the broad-shouldered Vissani, possessed of a grin that belies his otherwise serious demeanor, bounds about his beloved ristorante urging you to try this and sample that.
     We began our meal with long grissini breadsticks made from semolina, with which we sipped a rosato spumante.  Involtini of Chianina beef (the finest in Italy) with raisins, white asparagus perfumed with tarragon,  in a light sauce of leeks and potatoes, was our bright opener, followed by egg-rich fettuccine with the meat taken from the shell of tender, sweet scampi and morsels of foie gras, with a lovely, faint taste of coffee in the sauce--an absolutely stunning example of la cucina moderna.
     The meat course was young goat with a confiture of potatoes and minted artichokes in a reduction of dark pan juices and a surprising touch of peanut butter. Our three-hour lunch ended with a classic monte bianco--chestnut purée topped with whipped cream, but here done with an orange sauce and the scent of basil.
     We then retired to the dessert and coffee room (below) for excellent pistachio, cinnamon, chocolate and praline gelati.  A hazelnut Bavarian cream perfumed with sweet vin santo, a sauce of almonds, and a apricot syrup was as beautiful as it was delicious, and a warm orange zabaione tart with cold orange cream and chocolate cookies were typical of the several desserts we enjoyed, along with coffee (six varieties are offered, along with several infusions) pastries, and a glass of sweet, aromatic moscato.
It was an ideal, almost profligate way to spend a sunny afternoon after having visited Orvieto that morning, with nothing more to do than to return to Rome and wait for the stars to come out.  Vissani is like a dream you awake from, still smiling.

      A 3-course meal at Vissani, with lots of little extras, including tax and service, is about 85€ ($102), with a tasting menu at 150€ ($180).  His book, I Segreti di un Grande Cuoco (1999) is available at
www.unilibro.it/find_buy/product.asp?sku=80172

NEW YORK CORNER

FIAMMA OSTERIA
206 Spring Street
212-653-0100
www.brguestrestaurant.com

Three years ago when Fiamma opened in

SoHo, I named Michael White "Chef of the Year" in my annual "Best New Restaurants" feature in Esquire. At that time I wrote of White and his boss, Steve Hanson, "Every great restaurateur has an Italian restaurant in him he needs to do, so Steve Hanson, whose previous efforts include the gargantuan Blue Fin and Ruby Foo’s in the Theater District, has given SoHo its best Italian restaurant in years. Fiamma is that rare and curious thing—a very authentic, very intimate, very gregarious Italian restaurant whose chef is an American kid with an embarrassingly American name—Michael White, who fell under Italy’s spell and worked for six years at the feet of master chef Valentino Marcatillii of the famous San Domenico outside of Bologna.  . . .   And while showing admirable reverence and soulful affection for another food culture, their irrepressible American style comes through, with force, with vibrancy, and with the kind of style sure to be copied immediately by other chefs who can see what wonderful things are going on here at Fame."
       On the basis of a recent  return to Fiamma, I wouldn't change  a word of that write-up.  Nevertheless, a year after Fiamma opened, I was distressed to learn that Hanson was going to open  a Fiamma in Las Vegas (which turned out to be a gargantuan facsimile at the grotesque MGM Grand), and then another in Scottsdale, AZ, in the  James Hotel.  I had hoped that White might stay behind in NYC while  Hanson developed his empire, but apparently White is involved in three Fiammas.  I have no idea how much time he spends in the west overseeing those branches, but on the basis of dining at the NYC original, with White back in the kitchen, I can't say there's been any decrease in the quality of food, wine or service here.
     White's food seems a bit more lavish than it used to be, but it still has the savor of authenticity, beginning with antipasti like Speck ham with white asparagus, wild arugula, and radishes. He combines imported mozzarella di bufala with a chilled tomato-cucumber soup, and his roasted prawns with grilled tomato-orange tocco (a Genoese ragù) and baby fennel- and-herb salad just skirts being overwrought.
     Pastas are sublime, from tagliolini with lobster, shrimp, zucchini, tomato and tarragon--all in lovely equilibrium--to garganelli with San Daniele prosciutto, peas, parmigiano, and rich truffle butter.  If you want your fish Sicilian-style, order the grilled swordfish with hot, spicy caponata and pignoli-caper salsa; for meat, the roasted pork tenderloin with yellow peaches and spinach alla romana in a reduction of vin santo is an enchanting treatment.  You may then opt for an array of five unusual Italian cheeses like blue-veined erborinato, sottocenere laced with truffles, and val belbo, a mix of goat's and sheep's milk. Suggested wines are listed alongside.
      But desserts are  not to be missed, including the housemade gelati and sorbetti, along with a bittersweet chocolate torta with espresso zabaglione and salted caramel. Delicately thin Crespelle come warm to the table, with rhubarb preserves, lemon canditi, and lemon sorbetto. Espresso, it goes without saying, is made the right way here.
       Fiamma's wine list is largely Italian and one of the best selections in the city, with a decent number under $50.
      Dinner antipasti run $13-$18, full portions of pasta $22-$26, fish $28-$32, and meats $26-$33.

UH. . . PROBABLY SO

"Remembering your first fried clam has got to be a Massachusetts thing."--Ken Beaulieu, Massachusetts Great Escapes.

A company named Dead Serious Cookers

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Editor/Publisher: John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani,  Naomi  Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson,  Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein, Lucy Gordan, Suzanne Wright. Contributing Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,  Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Bloomberg News and Radio, and Diversion.  He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press).  

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copyright John Mariani 2005