Italian – Touring Foodie

September 20, 2023September 20, 2023

Terra Madre

One of the most unique, authentic and locally sourced experiences you can ever have in Apulia is at Terra Madre (which means “Mother Earth”), in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Alberobello in Puglia, Southern Italy.

Terra Madre is a restaurant that is LITERALLY & FIGURATIVELY built around their vegetable garden, where they grow everything that ends up on your plate in their fantastic and reasonably priced 10-course vegetable-only appetizer “omakase”.

The tables lining the vegetable garden in the evening…

We started by ordering the vegetable-only 10 course appetizer. It’s normally 25 euros per person but in my experience one order can be shared by two people, especially if you plan to have entrées after that.

Red onions, beans and tomatoes on fava beans purée

Zucchini and ricotta mouse with pistacchio powder

Then we proceeded to order entrées…

The Fusilloni with vegetables, cream of zucchini and mint was sadly a bit underwhelming and definitely under-salted…

The Braciole veal meat rolls with rosemary baked potatoes were tasty but not the best I’ve ever had…

Baked Rabbit stuffed with Pork neck and cream of cicorie

Desert and amaro were great.

After having tasted 4 out of the 6 entrées, it is clear to me that the strong suite of this restaurant are indeed the vegetables. Their entree dishes are not bad, but if that were all they served I wouldn’t be recommending it so highly. This is one restaurant where you wanna be vegetarian even if you are not!

I have since been back to Terra Madre at least 3 times and in a couple of occasions I thought they were falling a bit short, but it might also be that I’ve always been there in August and this being a seasonal restaurant (closed in the winter, by the way) I wonder how amazing and different it would taste in the spring or in the fall.

Here are some photos from my most recent visits:

August 8, 2022August 8, 2022

Campisi

When in Rome, do as the Romans do… so they say, and mostly it is true! However, sometimes, even when in Rome, it pays off to do as the Sicilians do!

On my most recent visit to Rome I have discovered the Campisi Restaurant. Located in the Trieste neighborhood, away from tourists and the hustle and bustle of the center of the city, Campisi was a true foodie’s discovery!

Every single dish was exquisite and all the ingredients are locally sourced in Sicily. In fact, I was told by my host that Campisi has a long history of food production and packaging in Sicily (and the restaurant does showcase jarred and boxed delicatessens on its walls as decoration) and that one of the brothers of the owners of that food establishment eventually moved to Rome and opened this fine establishment.

The menu is only in Italian (which I like, because it means they do not cater to the tourists at all!) but the waiters speak some English and are very enthusiastic about the descriptions of the food and the presentations of the dishes.

Pacchero pasta with red tuna and Sicilian capers entrée

Spaghetti with tuna roe and pistacchio sprinkles entrée

Spaghetti with stracciatella cheese & coffee powder entrée

The menu on their website today is not up to date with what was being served yesterday at the restaurant, but it will give you an idea of what their beautiful presentations look like: www.ristorantecampisi.com

Most definitely worth a visit it you want a fantastic fish restaurant and you want to escape the tourist hall!

February 19, 2018

Officine Degli Apuli

Great restaurant of Apulian specialties in the heart of Bologna.

Often times restaurants that offer meat, fish and pizza in the same place are not that great or not that great at all three of them. Not the case here.

I’ve been going back to this place almost every year and the quality is consistent. I’ve been there with just a few people and with large groups of 15-20 people on a busy night and service can sometimes be a bit slow but the food is amazing.

On my last visit we’ve had a mixture of seafood and pizza.

The cold and hot seafood appetizer was beautifully presented and a great balance of flavors and textures. The cold part includes tuna tartare, caramelized red onions, squid with zucchini, baby shrimps in tomatoes:

You can order a real burrata cheese appetizer separately. It comes from Andria (where the best burrata is from) and this was one of the best burratas I’ve had outside of Puglia.

The hot appetizers includes “pepata di cozze” (which are mussels baked with bread crumbs and lemon) and are a specialty of Taranto.

Jumbo shrimps in warm tomatoes sauce:

Squid ink pasta:

Linguine with clams:

Paccheri pasta with Ricciola (yellowtail) and cherry tomatoes:

Octopus on a bed of fava beans purée and chicory:

Pizza “Martinese” with stracciatella cheese and capocollo meat:

Almond Semifreddo dessert:

Pistachio Semifreddo restaurant:

December 21, 2017December 12, 2018

Mushroom

Mushroom is an amazing food experience if you love… you guessed it, mushrooms!

Basically this Moscow restaurant (5-10 min from Gorki Park) makes almost every single dish (including desserts!) using some type of mushroom. That alone is so unique that it’s worth a visit!

If I had to categorize it (which I did have to) I would say it’s fusion-italian-french, simply because there are lots of pasta dishes, some pizzas and a whole truffle menu (including a season set with black and white truffles).

The quality of the food is great and the decor and atmosphere are very nice too so if you want something cool, original and different for a change you should by all means visit. You won’t be disappointed!

I usually don’t post multiple menu pages but since I find this so interesting I decided I would so that you can see the variety and creativity that goes into cooking everything with one (family) of ingredients.

Here’s the main room with open-kitchen and wood-fired brick pizza oven in view next to the bar.

Okay I failed miserably by starting with a dish that had no mushrooms in it, but tuna tartare is one of my weaknesses so I had to indulge. Exquisite.

Another weakness of mine is pizza and although I wasn’t going to, the smart waiter totally upsold me… What was I thinking ordering pizza in Russia??? I don’t know! This one is definitely disappointing by any Italian standards (the crust just was not right, way too crispy, more like flatbread) but the porcini mushroom and ricotta toppings were quite delicious and since we ordered it as an appetizer it was a good little forest into the mushroom world.

Bruschetta with salted milk mushrooms sour cream and horseradish was much more along the lines of what I should have ordered (and so should you!).

Timber mushrooms with crispy eggplants and tomatoes was ok but not incredible.

This wild mushroom cream soup was absolutely amazing! A must!!!

Tagliolini with porcini and truffle sauce also kept the standard very high. Creamy, buttery and delicious. Borderline French I’d say…

The truffle honey cake was as decadent as it sounds.

These two little truffle chocolate balls were offered to us as a complementary treat with tea and coffee and were as good as most European chocolate is.

This would not be my choice italian restaurant (although I wouldn’t go and eat Italian in Russia to begin with!) but the novelty of a single-ingredient-focused menu got my attention and curiosity and the meal was all in all very enjoyable and tasty.

This restaurant is part of the more popular (and upscale) “White Rabbit” restaurant.

If you are a high roller and feel like splurging the white set menu with 5g of white truffle will cost you about 5-6 times more than the average entree while the black truffle (also 5g) about 3-4 times. If you don’t want the set you can also order truffle as an appetizer by the gram (95 Rubles for black and 270 Rubles for white).