2024-05-04 06:30:33
It sounds like a saying from your parents or the title of a Rolling Stones song: “You can’t always have everything.” Unfortunately, that was also the program during a visit to Milan’s hippest restaurant, the Trattoria del Ciumbia in the Brera district.
When the international design elite flocked to the Salone del Mobile in Milan a few weeks ago, this restaurant (incidentally a new project by Ray-Ban heir Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio) was not only one of the recommendations of the New York Times, but also in represented in a whole series of Instagram stories. Not wrongly. The interior, designed by the Milanese company Dimore Studio, is quite impressive. The ceiling is wine red, the walls are paneled with dark walnut wood, and the pictures on the walls are charmingly reminiscent of old trattorias from the 1960s. The stools with short, leather-upholstered backrests and woven seats (the design studio’s own creation) are pretty to look at. They are less comfortable – just like the bench against the wall, whose cushions are attached in such a way that guests have to sit very upright in order not to get back pain.
Confusion about the aperitif
Chef Paolo Rollini’s cuisine is that of a typical Lombard trattoria with a few twists: there are antipasti (including pickled anchovies with bread, marinated eel on polenta or a salad with nerves), a primi section with various pasta dishes, risotto and minestrone and a Secondi section with various meat and fish dishes, of course osso buco, lasagne, but also frog legs. The staff, smartly dressed in white shirts and vests that match the color of the walls, were numerous and courteous. However – and this brings us to the opening motto – there were some problems. Number one: confusion about the aperitif. When we asked whether we could have an aperitif before our meal, the first waiter said no, which was followed by a second waiter who wanted to organize an aperitif for us and took our order. Only to come back a little later and tell us that we can’t have an aperitif after all. You can choose a nice bottle of wine from the extensive menu.
But this gave rise to the second problem of the evening: Apparently the design crowd at the Salone del Mobile drank quite a lot; an estimated third of the wines listed had small red dots on them: they had drunk up their supplies. We were then recommended a Pinot Noir, vintage 2018, with the emphasis that it was a particularly good vintage. (Some may remember the summer of the century in Germany.) But we were then brought a bottle from the 2019 vintage, which was not even listed on the menu. They weighed it up: 2018 had been drunk and it was the same wine, just a “fresh batch”. For a restaurant of this standard, it’s especially cheeky.
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The meat was good, the side dishes were off
Anyway, the food was good. The Bruscitti, a ragout of beef slowly braised in red wine, was hearty and delicious, as was the Ossobuco, a Milanese classic where the meat almost melted in your mouth like butter. But that brings us to problem number three: there was a problem with the side dishes. Osso buco with polenta: not possible – only available with risotto or potatoes. The potatoes then turned out to be mashed potatoes. And the bruscitti comes with polenta as standard, but in our case it also seemed to consist of mashed potatoes. Did the Salone crowd also get their hands on the polenta? There were no problems with the dessert, which was admittedly just as powerful as the main course: a chocolate cake that is best shared.
Despite good food, good wine and good coffee for dessert (we are still in Italy after all), there is still a bad aftertaste in this stylish trendy restaurant. Was the service simply having a bad day, or should you just wait a month after the furniture fair for the restaurant to restock supplies? What is clear is that the dinner experience was rather disappointing for a restaurant in this price range.
#Milans #hippest #restaurant #disappointment