17/12/2024: Philosophy of excellent simplicity and tradition open to the future.
Roberto is special...
02/11/2024: Acceptable, not exceptional.
We decided to come here as it was the only Michelin restaurant open for lunch nearby us. My partner and I both work in the Michelin world so we are very familiar with the general experience of a tasting menu and of course because of that, already have a level of expectation. Our comments are mostly constructive so I would like to add that the staff and overall experience was pleasant, however we were looking for more.
Menu: We had the 38 year tasting menu however one was modified to be vegetarian. First thing to note is that portion sizes are very small even for this style of dining. The majority of dishes were great, the canapé and the unusual salad was particularly enjoyable, the spinach ricotta ravioli were exceptional.
The vegetarian menu was lacking on a few courses and the menu descriptions ideally need revisiting to reflect this. The Borage Saccottini was so salty it was hard to finish, pre course was a single porcino mushroom, not plural, and the main course read “eggplant steak with yogurt” however what was presented was 2 baby melanzane that were deep fried served with Crème fraîche and berries, which were mouldy. This course was therefore not eaten and this was not addressed by anyone after we made them aware.
We were then asked to “do you want the cheese before the dessert?” we were surprised and said we I didn’t realise there was a cheese course next, yes before dessert is better. We later discovered this was a chargeable extra and felt frustrated that we were positioned the course in such a way that implied it was included.
Dessert disappointingly had none of the delicate flavours or aromas of panettone, it was overwhelmed with a flavour of hot batter. Petit fours were tasteless and dry with the exception of the chocolate which was delicious but had not been tampered correctly and was slipping from our fingers when we tried to pick it up.
Wine: We started with a glass of champagne, presented with only one option and poured before tasting. Our glasses were far under the correct measure and one glass had noticeably more than the other.
We chose our bottle, a Sangiovese with 19 years of age was brought from the cellar without a cradle and then placed upright. The sommelier doubted the first bottle was good so went to get a second but didn’t mention anything when they took the bottle away from the table. The second bottle was good, and to our surprise poured into our glasses directly from the bottle. We had to ask for it to be decanted. Given the beautiful Zalto Burgundy glasses, the wine would have been able to open up, albeit much slower, without decanting. The primary concern was the sediment. Unfortunately our glasses had sediment from the first pour and decanting was done without any light so very disappointingly we had a considerable amount of sediment throughout. The decanter was washed with wine from our bottle when there was already wine in a glass from the test pour that could have been used. The end of the bottle was filtered and added to our glasses without asking if that is what we wanted.
We still had a good time, but can’t help but feel we could have made a better choice. Any small acknowledgement of our celebration would have made a huge difference, we were celebrating something very special and came here hoping our experience would reflect that.
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