not the worst meal ever.

After a trying time navigating Solofra in search of lunch, we called a taxi to take us to and from dinner. It seemed the wisest choice, if we indeed wished to eat dinner at all. We had made reservations at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Feudi di San Gregorio winery, one of the best-regarded producers in Campania, perhaps in all of southern Italy. The winery is about 25 or 30 minutes into the country from Solofra, and the scenery was beautiful. We were driving down twisting country lanes just as the sun was setting over the mountains. It was the kind of scenery I associate with a chick flick wherein the heroine drops everything, heads to Italy and rediscovers herself by falling in love with an Italian who probably speaks with a British accent. Cheesy as hell in a movie but pretty fantastic in real life.

The winery itself is a beautiful building. We had a bit of a tour before we sat down to dinner: the cellar, the giant oak fermentation tanks, the racks of spumante (made in a collaboration with a French Champagne house), and finally, a 15 by 20 by 4 foot or so nativity scene that featured a Norman era church (maybe 12^th or 13^th century) that had been razed by the earthquake of 1980. I’ll admit, the nativity scene kind of came out of left field.

Yeah, its a little weird. 

Then on to dinner. The room itself is very sleek and modern in style, with floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the vineyards and a glass-enclosed spotless kitchen. There were perhaps 40 or 50 seats and I counted seven cooks. No menus were offered, and we happily accepted the offer of both a tasting menu and wine pairings. Overall, I have to say that both the food and the service were on point, excellent, superlative, fill in your own ecstatic adjective here.

footlong breadsticks

First was a trio of appetizers. A shot glass full of their take on insalada Caprese comprised of a sort of buffalo mozzarella cream (don’t call it a foam, it was way creamier and richer and I’m positive there wasn’t any lecithin used) and a bright acidic tomato water/sauce. Also a bacalao style fritter made with anchovy, perfectly crisp outside. The third component was described as polenta ice cream, and it was topped with wafer thin slices of black truffle, olive oil and flakes of sea salt. It was the most restrained use of truffles I’ve ever tasted, and the ice cream had a hint of corn’s sweetness but matched the truffles well.

Next, a truly over the top bread service: we had three separate baskets/plates of bread on the table. Crispy breadsticks about a foot or 18 inches long in a vase, a longboard plate of hot rolls in four or five flavors (salami and cheese was the most memorable) and a room temp basket of crusty white bread, all accompanied by the estate-grown and pressed olive oil. It was more fruity and had much less of a spicy character than the Spanish and the Californian olive oils that I’ve been using at home recently.

Calamari stuffed with spring onion and breadcrumbs served over a squid ragu followed. Tender squid, meltingly soft green onion, the breadcrumbs add a nice contrast in textures. The clam dish that arrived next was perhaps the best of the night: tender fresh pasta filled with shrimp (perhaps it was scallop mousse that bound them together, I’m not positive) topped with shelled Manilla clams, tiny and sweet, the broth in the bowl is clarified clam stock with ginger, black tea and parsley, and there is a single larger clam, about the size of a littleneck, on the halfshell as a garnish. Every element worked with everything else, the dish was balanced, perfectly seasoned, light but flavorful. I wish I had come up with it. (I know the picture is a little blurry. I'm a cook with a camera phone. Deal with it.)

Next came sheets of fresh egg pasta wrapped into cylinders around a base of a farmhouse-style fresh cheese topped with brunoise of roasted eggplant, zucchini and peppers, sauced with foamed buffalo’s milk and olive oil. A little thyme and marjoram. Simple, and well-executed. The produce is so good that a dish like this seems more complicated that it is while you’re eating it, because it has so much depth of flavor.

Entrees appeared next. Ellen does not eat quadrupeds (no beef, pork, lamb, rabbit, venison, etc. but fish and poultry are ok) so the kitchen gave her an Indian-spiced chicken breast with a yogurt sauce and some veg that she enjoyed. I, however, was happy to have a small square of tender pork belly with a crispy skin that I think might have been achieved with a blowtorch. Or not, I didn’t watch them cook it. In any case, it tasted great, fatty/crispy/tender all at the same time. Served with a smooth and refined lemon marmalade, a rich brown sauce I guessed was the reduced braising liquid and sweet roasted onion, nicely caramelized at the edges.

At this point, I could have thrown in the towel, but we still had a cheese course and two dessert courses to go. The cheese was nice, a selection of aged Italian cheeses of which the still-creamy-in-the-center goats milk was my favorite. The first dessert consisted of a small brioche roll with powdered sugar and a chilled martini glass of pistachio cream and lemon gelato. Delicious, light, palate-cleansing even. But the second dessert was the standout. The chef hails from Sicily, and he had, according to our server, attempted to put together the flavors of his home island in this dish. A few orange segments, topped with crushed almond and pistachio, orange gelato, a crisp orange chip, orange pound cake with almond liqueur, almond pastry cream. Wow.

Just when I thought I could not possibly go on, a selection of candies and “biscuits” showed up. This included a shot glass of espresso, coffee flavored pastry cream and some kind of coffee booze I couldn’t identify. Also watermelon gelee cups that were made with agar agar. The flavor was good but the texture off, almost a little plastic-y, and they were the only thing that hit our table that I did not like during the entire meal. The butter cookie was worth mentioning, just because the texture was so nice, crumbly but not dry. The chocolate-almond truffle-esque candy was nice as well, but made of milk chocolate and I much prefer dark chocolate.

I just realized I haven’t even mentioned the wine. Maybe I’ll let Ellen cover that.