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Food & Lodging, Oct. 7

• Breakfast at home

• Lunch at home

• Dinner on the airplane
  Good as only TWA can make it. The phrase “airline food” is an oxymoron.

• Overnight on the airplane
  The flight was full; ‘nuff said.

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 8

• Breakfast on the airplane

• Lunch at [a little panini place in a shopping arcade behind the hotel]
  Panini are little sandwiches usually on baguette rolls: one or more cheeses, Parma ham, prosciutto, etc.; served cold or hot at your request. We grabbed lunch at such places for most of the trip. This one was pleasant enough, sparkling clean as they always were.

• Dinner at Trattoria Bagutta, via Bagutta 14, Milano
  We learned about Bagutta from a seat-mate on the flight over, a clothing buyer coming in for the Spring shows. It proved most jolly. A large place, the rooms decorated in various styles, and the walls covered with art — sketches and caricatures mostly, done in tribute to the restaurant and its proprietors since 1922. We had primi, segundi, one dessert, and a bottle of vino de casa. It took a good few days until we had worked up the confidence to order only one course, if that was all we wanted to eat.

• Overnight at City Hotel, Corso Buenos Ayres, 42/5, Milano
  This was the only hotel reservation we made in advance of our arrival in Italy. After the first night we called ahead to hotels recommended in the Michelin Red Guide. This was an almost completely satisfactory arrangement. Doing it again, we would reserve two nights after arrival in the same place, the better to get the new time zone internalized.

  City Hotel was reasonable, clean, a touch on the expensive side, although probably not so for Milano as a whole. The air conditioning didn’t work. This came to be a sort of joke about the expectations of travelling Americans. On the whole we were perfectly happy in accommodations that by the standards of business travel were somewhat modest.

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 9

• Breakfast at City Hotel, Milano
  It was inciuso, included with the room rate.

• Lunch in the car

• Dinner at Due Buoi Rossi, via Cavour 32, Alessandria
  This was one of the more ambitious restaurants we visited. It was fungus season and the menu of the day featured a truffle preparation, a fonduta. As Alice worked it out, this implied truffles over a plain cheese sauce. She went to the effort of arranging for the fonduta to be served over riso for me. Over the steaming dish the waiter shaved an entire truffle, bigger than my thumb. It was indescribable. Alice ordered the restaurant’s specialty, a preparation of braised rabbit with peppers. The waiter must have been impressed by her culinary adventurousness in another language: he presented to Alice after the meal a serving platter with a cartoonish rendering of two oxen and a rabbit, inscribed “Concilio in Peperonata; Red Oxen, Alessandria.”

• Overnight at Residence San Michele, San Michele (Alessandria)

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 10

• Breakfast at Residence San Michele

• Lunch at Ristorante Centro, via Doria 46, Chiàvari
  A pleasant cafeteria-style restaurant / bar. We had pasta w/meat sauce, veal scallopini, potatoes, some local wine, and the ever-present aqua minerale: Fourteen thousand lira for both.

• Dinner at Trattoria Sevieri, via Fratelli Rosselli 58, La Spezia
  A wonderful dining experience. Friendly, efficient, quiet. We asked to be seated outside (i.e., Alice asked). We were immediately brought a basket of fresh breads and ordered the local wine. I had a pasta dish with local mushrooms; Alice ordered a penne putenesca. Green salads, fresh as the day is long. Dessert was Gorgonzola. Pretty much all the essentials. 30 mille total.

• Overnight at Hotel Astoria, via Roma 139, La Spezia

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 11

• Breakfast at [unknown] cafe, La Spezia
  Bustling and gleaming. Nearly everybody eats standing up. There were only 4 or 5 small tables; besides ours, those not vacant were occupied by elderly ladies (Real Men Eat Breakfast Standing Up). I sat amid the bustle and Alice caused to appear (1) cappucino; (2) beautiful croissants, much less buttery/fat than those fobbed off on Americans; and (3) a macedone, finely chopped / macerated mixed fruit. The total damage for two was under $14.

• Lunch at [unknown], Riomaggiore
  The name of this tiny café unfortunately was not recorded; but if any reader wants to find it, just look for the café above the village elementary school. Bread, mineral water, and the local wine. Burton Anderson notes that it is composed usually of Bosco grapes with some Albarola and Vermintino. It was pale, young, quaffable, not particularly distinguished, but exactly the thing to drink in that time and place. A dessert wine called Sciacchetrà is produced locally as well, but we didn’t sample it. (Anderson calls it “very rare,” referring to its availability stateside.)

• Dinner at [unknown], adjacent to Celide, Lucca
  No written menu. We essentially let the waiter bring whatever they were cooking that evening, and ate what was brought. One appetizer was fried polenta with mushrooms braised in red wine — spectacular — we’ve made it a couple of times since returning.

• Overnight at Hotel Celide, viale Giusti 27, Lucca
  One of the most comfortable lodgings of the trip. If we were going back for an extended stay in one place, I would lobby for that place to be Celide in Lucca. It was inexpensive (only La Spezia was cheaper), warm and welcoming, professionally run, and accommodating to a fare-thee-well. The rooms and furnishings had a lived-in appearance without being at all run-down. The linens and towels were quite luxurious (this was true in most places we stayed). The hotel may or may not have been family-run, but the staff gave the appearance of having lived and worked together for years.

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 12

• Breakfast at Caselli Antica, Lucca
  A German-flavored café, it served wursts and beer in addition to the usual sweet rolls and coffee.

• Lunch at [a panini place on via Elisa or via Santa Croce], Lucca
  This small panini house is a narrow storefront with no apparent kitchen. There is additional seating in rooms to the rear. After taking your order, the proprietress vanishes somewhere, presumably to the hidden kitchen, and emerges with food some minutes later.

• Dinner at Da Mario, Borgo Ognisanti, Firenze
  Not too distinguished. Catering to tourists almost completely; all the other patrons we saw were tourists. A rather sad pair from Texas had been travelling Europe for a couple of months, staying in pensiones; they either didn’t have the knack of travelling on their own, or had burned out on it and were homesick. Another lady seated next to us ate dinner with her miniature poodle on her lap. (In Firenze we saw lots of people who were apparently travelling with their pets.)

• Overnight at Hotel Villa Azalee, viale Fratelli Rosselli 44, Firenze

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 13

• Breakfast at [a noisy café in via della Scala]
  We didn’t know breakfast was inciuso at at the Villa Azalee: i.e., we were paying for it anyway. Seems that late October is still “in season” for Firenze. The ninety-three thousand other Americans in town would probably agree… This was the last cafe breakfast we attempted. It’s really just too nerve-wracking: standing up, hanging half out into a busy street. And they don’t give you enough coffee! In the hotel breakfast room you can say “caffe latte” and a sufficient ration will appear. (Try not to think about how much breakfast is costing you though…) We learned from Harrison, alas only after returning, to say “doppia o quadrupla in una grande tazza” — long and double or quadruple in a big cup.

• Lunch at Caffe Ricchi, in Piazza Santo Spirito
  Pizza slices, mineral water, wine in one of the most soul-satisfying spaces we saw in all of Italy. The simplicity of Brunelleschi’s facade on the Santo Spirito is amazingly calming.

• Dinner at Ristorante Il Biribisso, via dell’Albero 28, Firenze
  One of the finer meals of the trip. Tied with Le Tre Vaselle for inventiveness of cooking and preparation, superior in comfort and cost. We were made to feel extravagantly welcome. We arrived without reservations at about 9:00 pm, and upon hearing that they were full (completo) we turned in disappointment to find somewhere else. The manager appeared from nowhere on the dead run (but not seeming to hurry) and insisted that we have a seat, they would accommodate us, which was soon done. Bean soup, into which the waiter poured a touch of olive oil. K: Veal sort-of Marsala. A: pasta arrabiata. Two green salads. Two fruit tarts. Wine: Goffredo-Schalchen Barbara D’Asti, Camp du Rouss (vineyard?), Coppa 1985, Canelli (maker?). Grappa: Nonino (Friuli).

• Overnight at Hotel Villa Azalee, Firenze

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 14

• Breakfast at Hotel Villa Azalee, Firenze

• Lunch at [an outdoor café in the Piazza del Duomo]

• Dinner at Trattoria [unknown], via Palazzuolo, Firenze
  We have no record of the name of this place. It was cash-only for one thing. The signs outside, as I remember, said only “Trattoria.” (Casa de la Maison House at the Hotel Albergo…) It was an extremely cheerful student joint with community seating, with a posted fixed-price “tourist dinner” at 12 mille. We arrived 20 minutes before the announced opening time to find them doing a thriving business, and were seated right away. The place was packed continuously and there was a crowd in the street the whole time we were there. Not leisurely, not elegant, but honest food and a lot of it for the money. No wonder it’s so popular with the giovanesse (youth).

• Overnight at Hotel Villa Azalee, Firenze

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 15

• Breakfast at Hotel Villa Azalee, Firenze

• Lunch at Enoteca de Castelle, San Gimignano
  We ate in an enclosed courtyard open to the sky. Fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, olive oil. Wines: Badia a Coltobuono (Chianti); Montepulciano Rosso (Chianti). Beyond was a giardino panoramico, panoramic garden, from which A. made two drawings and I lots of photos.

• Dinner at Harry’s Bar, lungarno Vespucci 22, Firenze
  Very heaven: peace and quiet. And air conditioning! And a bar you can sit down at! (The only two American-style bars we saw on the entire trip were both named Harry’s.) And they serve Laphroaig 10-years-old. Dinner is much more in the Italian style, however. The waiters were professional and competent, but perhaps a bit showmanly. The food was fine but not spectacular, the final bill a bit of a rocker. What the hey: it’s Harry’s Bar Firenze, where they sent the winners of the International Fake Hemingway contest… all is forgiven.

• Overnight at Hotel Villa Azalee, Firenze

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 16

• Breakfast at Hotel Villa Azalee, Firenze

• Lunch at La Taverna, via delle Streghe 8, Perugia
  Ate in one of three pretty rooms in this old restaurant, down an alley / steps from Perugia’s central piazza. The ceiling was brick and vaulted like a wine barrel. We had a full meal including wine and coffee, but the details were not recorded. Our dining companions were a dozen or more French tourists on what seemed to be an eating tour, so we figured we’d found a decent place, and so it proved.

• Dinner at Le Tre Vassele, Torgiano
  Maybe you can go home again. Dinner was lush and far too excessive, but spectacular. There is a small bottle of Lungarotti extra-virgin olive oil on every table, for enjoying with the variety of breads. This oil features prominently in the early saga of our couplehood, as I brought Alice a bottle as a house-gift early in our acquaintance, before it could have been called a “courtship.” The Winecellar of Silene, our local wine experts where I was introduced to Lungarotti’s wines and where I bought that first fateful bottle of olive oil, have not dealt in Lungarotti oil since the killer winter 6 years ago raised prices out of the mid-range. If available anywhere in this country, it would now fetch above $30 a bottle. The first great wine I every fully loved was Rubesco Riserva 1974, which was just reaching its early maturity in 1978 when I encountered it. Alice and I enjoyed a bottle of the 1975 at Romagnoli’s Table restaurant two years later, but the 1974 was already unavailable by that time.

  In Le Tre Vassele we ordered Rubesco Riserva 1974 from the menu (!) for $31 (!!). It was as incredible as memory suggests, and it resonated down the years of maturing taste to achieve an unprecedented depth. The waiter couldn’t say how many bottles are left, he thinks not many. But to have enjoyed this towering wine again on this trip, ten years since I’d assumed it vanished forever, is a pearl beyond price.

• Overnight at Le Tre Vassele, Torgiano

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 17

• Breakfast at Le Tre Vassele, Torgiano
  The best and broadest breakfast of the trip. Fresh-squeezed juices, caffe latte, many sorts of breads; an assortment of cheeses; ditto fruits, including what seemed to be Seckle pears macerated in a light syrup of water, honey, and spices; various meats, prosciutto, etc. (Also fish, but who can face it in the morning?)

• Lunch at Autogrill Novara, near Cesena
  One of Alice’s co-workers, Lou, who went on a guided tour to Italy had raved about the food in the autostrada roadside venues. With good reason. Copious, fresh, and cheap, no coperto (cover charge) or servizio (included tip); clean, quiet surroundings; immaculate restrooms. We had a bowl of hearty minestrone, bread, cheese, fruit, wine, mineral water for L. 18,000.

• Wine at [unknown], probably on via Dante below Corso Milano, Padova
  Before dinner we found a wine bar that was like an enoteca, in that it had a wide selection of wines by the glass; and it had more than nominal seating. (Almost all bars in Italy have two or three miserly tables and are open to the street on two sides. They do not encourage sitting and relaxing.) We had a small table in the window and unwound as we listened to students and professors argue good-naturedly. Wines: (1) Zeni 1989, Terololego Rotaliano (is this the DOC?), Grumo (maker?), San Michele. (2) Collato Riserva 1985, Colemet (DOC?), Axiendre (maker?), Susegara.

• Dinner at Casa Veneta, vicolo Ponte Molino 11, Padova
  Casa Veneta is one of the delights of the trip. It’s a neighborhood place, and was packed full both nights we were there (a Wednesday and Thursday). There are several cheerful rooms, high-ceilinged, interestingly designed. The walls are painted apricot, the linens pale yellow. The service is expert to a degree that is common enough in Italy, but in USA would be found only in a highly ambitious, formal restaurant, such as hotels favor. The food is wonderful, ample, and not killingly expensive.

  Our meal the first evening: K. ordered one of the daily specials, raviolone filled with spinach pureé and dressed with a light beurre blanc, carrots and zucchini. Delightful: the two paper-thin raviolone were each nearly the size of the plate. A. had penne arrabiata. Two green salads. A bottle of a good local white wine, details not recorded. Local mineral water. We split a dessert of fresh strawberries in sugar and lemon juice. L. 62,000 ($55) before tip.

• Overnight at Hotel Milano, via P. Bronzetti 62, Padova

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 18

• Breakfast at Hotel Milano

• Lunch at Al Santo, via del Santo, Padova
  Two pizzas at a neighborhood restaurant. We may have been the only customers in the place who were not pilgrims bound for the Basilica del Santo (i.e., Saint Anthony’s church).

• Dinner at Casa Veneta, Padova
  Our second dinner at this wonderful local place.

• Overnight at Hotel Milano, Padova

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 19

• Breakfast at Hotel Milano

• Lunch at [an outdoor café on the main square], Bergamo

• Dinner at Il Solito Posto, via Lambertenghi 9, Como
  The “Same Old Place” lives up to its name and mottos (“As it was yesterday, it still is today”; “We get for gentlepeople what they desire”). The details of decor are Milano-modern, the furnishings are ancient and tasteful. Nice young men brought spumante and snacks of olive/anchovy-dipped foccacia. It was unfortunate to have to order from the menu, but our limited Italian mandated it. (They had menus in German, French, English, and Italian — Como is near the Swiss border.) Diners at the adjacent table discussed food with the waiter for 20 minutes before ordering the first course, then repeated the procedure for the second… the proper way to do it.

  We had basically pasta and salads. The pasta was perfectly fine, but the salads were spectacular. One was rocket (arugula), finochio (fennel), and Boston lettuce with orange slices. The other was mixed greens covered in fresh, blanched corn kernels and thin-shaved parmesan cheese. Each was about as big as your head. Dressing was self-service, from good extra-virgin olive oil and lemon vinegar on the table. We had coffee and grappa, which came accompanied by a glass of thin breadsticks dipped in bitter chocolate.

  This was one of the most welcoming and comfortable restaurants of the trip, ranking right up there with Biribisso.

• Overnight at Hotel Continental, viale Innocenzo XI, 15, Como

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 20

• Breakfast at Hotel Continental

• Lunch at [panini place near La Scala]
  An extremely pleasant lunch of panini caldi at a gleaming emporium a block from La Scala, featuring photographs of the owner with L. Pavorotti, P. Domingo, etc.

• Dinner at Trattoria Scaldasole, via Volta, 39/41, Como
  Good food, plentiful and fresh as always… but oboy was this an adventurous meal. On the periphery of the pedestrian part of town, this trattoria seemed not to cater particularly to the tourist trade. None of the staff had much English. We were so looking forward to being homeward bound that our Italian was fast receding too. There appeared to be one hand-written menu on the premises, but we didn’t get to see it… the waiter recited it quickly. It was like a spot quiz. Our trusty Italian-English dictionary failed us by producing the wrong term for “medium” (as in steak), resulting in a Florentine that even Atilla might have considered undercooked. We tried “well done” and “burned,” and the second time the steak came out merely rare.

  We had a Sicilian white wine with dinner, a novelty to us: Rapitalà 1989 (Alcamo) DOC, Conté de la Gatamais, Adelcama SpA, Camporeale, Sicilia.

• Overnight at Hotel Continental, Como

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Food & Lodging, Oct. 21

• Breakfast at Hotel Continental

• Lunch on the plane

• Dinner at home

• Overnight at home