Thought for Food II
Another weekend find, and one I'm not even sure I should be posting about. However...
I have long been a fan of Italian food, partly because in Edinburgh (a previous life) it was part of the landscape. Second and third generation Italian families had set up and were still running all sorts of restaurants, trattoria and delis. Some necessarily famous - Valvona & Crolla, on Elm Row, is reputed to re-export Italian wines to Italy, such is their buying power, and they remain the city's best source of borlotti beans, fresh truffles, chantrelles, lumpy tomatoes and honest, irregular sun-ripened peppers. Not to mention cheeses of every hue and humour, pates, salamis, hams, cotecchini, zampone, parma, speck, proscuitto...
There are two main styles of 'Italian' restaurant in Edinburgh, the near-ubiquitous pizzeria (full on fast food, pastas in creamy sauces, Chianti bottles suspended on the walls and staffed by waiters with a Masters in back-chat), and then the others. Tinellis, a pokey little space, serving divine home-cooked food. There are a few others, each with a particular speciality, and my own personal favourite, Scalini, in the space now occumpied by Restaurant Martin Wishart. Silvio Praino was the proprietor, a Calabrian who loved food and wine even more than he despised bureaucracy. It was Silvio to whom we would take a weekend's haul of ceps and puffballs, and see them proudly displayed in his window. It was Silvio who would visit our office on a Monday morning with several pages of faxed lists, a parcel of Barollos that he had bought sight unseen from an estate disposal, and now needed to pay for by selling some of it on. Some of the most venerable and extraordinary wines I have ever tasted reached us by this somewhat unlikely route, but how else could I indulge in a vertical tasting of 1963, 1973 and 1983 Pio Cesares?
It was also Silvio who introduced us to the concept of Italian dining. We would be seated in his little restaurant, talk about business and his latest run-in with the council, or laywers, or the bank (always the bank!), and then we would get to the point of making a decision. Only it wasn't up to us - it would be Silvio who chose. "I have some wonderful new boconccini from my mother which arrived yesterday, it's not on the menu, but you'll enjoy that. I think you'll have the fegato, and for Mrs EoD, I got a nice hake this morning. Plain grilled, a little lemon, some spinachi..." And so it was, he brought to our table what was best that day, what amused and pleased him, what he thought we would enjoy, And we always did.
So to the present. There is in Wafi City a little Italian restaurant called Belucci, on the first floor of the new extension tucked away in a corner past Marks & Spencer. They have the world's most formidable pasta machine working away in a glass box, and a simple list of classic zuppa, salsa e verdure. (Sadly, they can't yet offer the full glory of Italian dining, selling neither wine nor pork, but I live in hope.) But what they do provide is sublime - full flavours, honest, fresh ingredients, precise cooking. A real treat. And they come to your table to discuss things with you - Olivia, the proprietress, is on hand to guide you through the options, to help you select what will please you on that day, comfort in times of stress, or uplift and revive when you feel adventurous. This was our first visit, but certainly not our last.
I have long been a fan of Italian food, partly because in Edinburgh (a previous life) it was part of the landscape. Second and third generation Italian families had set up and were still running all sorts of restaurants, trattoria and delis. Some necessarily famous - Valvona & Crolla, on Elm Row, is reputed to re-export Italian wines to Italy, such is their buying power, and they remain the city's best source of borlotti beans, fresh truffles, chantrelles, lumpy tomatoes and honest, irregular sun-ripened peppers. Not to mention cheeses of every hue and humour, pates, salamis, hams, cotecchini, zampone, parma, speck, proscuitto...
There are two main styles of 'Italian' restaurant in Edinburgh, the near-ubiquitous pizzeria (full on fast food, pastas in creamy sauces, Chianti bottles suspended on the walls and staffed by waiters with a Masters in back-chat), and then the others. Tinellis, a pokey little space, serving divine home-cooked food. There are a few others, each with a particular speciality, and my own personal favourite, Scalini, in the space now occumpied by Restaurant Martin Wishart. Silvio Praino was the proprietor, a Calabrian who loved food and wine even more than he despised bureaucracy. It was Silvio to whom we would take a weekend's haul of ceps and puffballs, and see them proudly displayed in his window. It was Silvio who would visit our office on a Monday morning with several pages of faxed lists, a parcel of Barollos that he had bought sight unseen from an estate disposal, and now needed to pay for by selling some of it on. Some of the most venerable and extraordinary wines I have ever tasted reached us by this somewhat unlikely route, but how else could I indulge in a vertical tasting of 1963, 1973 and 1983 Pio Cesares?
It was also Silvio who introduced us to the concept of Italian dining. We would be seated in his little restaurant, talk about business and his latest run-in with the council, or laywers, or the bank (always the bank!), and then we would get to the point of making a decision. Only it wasn't up to us - it would be Silvio who chose. "I have some wonderful new boconccini from my mother which arrived yesterday, it's not on the menu, but you'll enjoy that. I think you'll have the fegato, and for Mrs EoD, I got a nice hake this morning. Plain grilled, a little lemon, some spinachi..." And so it was, he brought to our table what was best that day, what amused and pleased him, what he thought we would enjoy, And we always did.
So to the present. There is in Wafi City a little Italian restaurant called Belucci, on the first floor of the new extension tucked away in a corner past Marks & Spencer. They have the world's most formidable pasta machine working away in a glass box, and a simple list of classic zuppa, salsa e verdure. (Sadly, they can't yet offer the full glory of Italian dining, selling neither wine nor pork, but I live in hope.) But what they do provide is sublime - full flavours, honest, fresh ingredients, precise cooking. A real treat. And they come to your table to discuss things with you - Olivia, the proprietress, is on hand to guide you through the options, to help you select what will please you on that day, comfort in times of stress, or uplift and revive when you feel adventurous. This was our first visit, but certainly not our last.
posted by EyeOnDubai at 9:54 pm
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