04/04/2024: Cool atmosphere, delicious food, friendly service.
07/02/2024: Visited last March
At El Molin you enter a place that exudes tradition and rustic elegance, the rooms are in fact very pleasant, warm, modern, with lots of well-renovated wood... in short, pleasant and relaxing. The chef appears from the kitchen and welcomes us.
We decide for the 8-course menu which I also combine with the tasting of 5 glasses which are not exclusively of wine, but also add a really good cocktail based on apple juice and smoking, which accompanies the numerous entrees, while the second course “non wine” is a gin and tonic created by the chef who uses his gin in various of his preparations. The latter honestly didn't excite me and if I have to be honest, apart from thinking that the combination with the sweet part of the menu was forced and not centered, I noticed an excessive presence of gin and tonic also on the menu . In short, I understand the chef's creation, but in my opinion it's a bit much.
The evening began with amouse bouche which we paired with a fantastic glass of pure Kettmeir Chardonnay, and then got to the heart of things with a whole series of entrees that were part of the tasting journey. Of this first taste of the route I can only say that the experience is that of a walk in the mountain forest, early in the morning, where the aromas are intense and the earthy ones mix with the more ethereal ones of wood and smoke, always very present in the chef's preparations.
The chapter that sees first courses as the protagonists is still excellent: it starts with a sort of combination of ravioli del plin with hare, but created with the consistency of passatello... believe me, it's exactly like that! Dish that you would want to keep eating and eating! We then move on to rice cooked in a divine way, where each grain is the protagonist in itself. Here too we have a light smoking that completes and ennobles it together with other flavors that unfortunately I can't remember now. Paired with a good 2020 pure Rhenish riesling from Pojer and Sandri.
We then continue with a little surprise that I must say, as a connoisseur, I really appreciated: the bread was given dignity in terms of serving! In fact, the sourdough bread is the absolute protagonist of the interlude that follows. Not only is this fantastic element elevated to the protagonist, but it is masterfully accompanied with two cheeses, some Garda oil and a butter that is practically recreated directly at the table. Simply fantastic.
At the end of the plate, I would like to make a suggestion to the service: since they know perfectly well that the bread will no longer appear on the table, it would have been good practice to collect all the crumbs from the tablecloth without waiting for them to serve themselves and finish. two more dishes and then move on to cleaning before the desserts. For what reason? There is not!
So, once the bread is finished, we move directly to the dish that least convinced both me and my partner: a mushroom soup which however, in all sincerity, although we greatly appreciated the mushroom broth, we didn't really understand, let alone I particularly appreciated the composition of the dish. Perhaps a little difficult and complex.
Finally, we close the savory part with an excellent braised deer cheek. What to say? Perfect dish, succulent meat cooked to perfection.
In combination I had here a very good Pinot Noir from Bellaveder Riserva Faedi from 2019.
The sweet part would have, as mentioned, deserved a completely different wine pairing from the gin and tonic, I honestly don't understand it at all. However, the proposals were valid and interesting, not immediate, but there was a thought behind it that kept all the preparations together and the sequence proposed for tasting guided the palate to better appreciate the entire offering.
Overall I would say that the experience was decidedly positive and we are really happy to have had the pleasure of spending an evening at this restaurant.
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