ceci n'est pas un foodblog

Since Beth was out here last weekend, we celebrated with a meal at an upscale kinda restaurant: Antico Arco, located on the Gianicolo not too far from home. Antico Arco is usually ranked in the top of the Roman restaurant listings; they do modern versions of Roman cuisine. The decor is similarly non-traditional, as you can see from this photo:



This is the one picture I took at dinner; after taking it, I felt instantly self-conscious and decided to let Mr. Camera hide in his little pouch for the rest of the evening. Instead, I will use the magic of my descriptions paint a picture of the dinner…

We ordered the degustazione; seven courses (54 euros), and titled “Seven Steps Through Gianicolo Hill”. We also ordered a few glasses of wine, but I didn’t write them down, and I didn’t know what they were (there was something white from Puglia that I liked a lot) and so they have completely skipped my mind. Sorry…

The amuse-bouche (hey! the obligatory amuse-bouche has spread to Italy! Now if I could only remember what the Italian term, if any, is…) was a chilled pea soup with tomato cream and teensy-tiny little croutons. Nice for summer.

Course #1 was a pan-seared, slightly crispy red mullet fillet with sauteed diced vegetables (eggplant, asparagus), a thin pesto and balsamic vinegar. This may have been my favorite dish of the night; as with the amuse, it was pretty light and very satisfying.

This was followed by a little panzanella (bread salad) topped with fresh octopus: cylinders, each a half-inch or so in diameter, and about the same height, that I guess were cut from the tentacles. (I think. Actually, I have absolutely no idea where they come from, never having had the chance to dissect an octopus. For all I know, they could have been cylindrical octopus testicles, or sections from the eyestalks of an Mediterranean red-footed octopus. But the next time I take off on one of my Captain Nemo-esque undersea adventures, I’ll be sure to save the bodies of the octopuses I fight in a desperate battle to the death, and not just dump them off the side of my submarine for the sharks to devour.) Anyway, whatever part of the octopus it was, it was tender, if a little bland. It occurs to me just how rarely I’ve eaten octopus; it’s usually been smoked, or in sushi, and has always- including at ‘Gusto- been at least a little bit rubbery. This wasn’t at all; an interesting experience. The pesto from the fish course made a reappearance here, which was a little surprising. But in a good way: pesto isn’t Tuscan like panzanella is, but it was a nice match with the mild octopus.

More fish in the third course, a “gnocchi” with tiger prawns bisque, sea bass and sauteed chicory. I’m not sure why “gnocchi” “was” in “scare quotes”; as far as I could tell, they were pretty standard gnocchi shaped, nice and light and quite good. I hope that this doesn’t signal the creeping invasion of unnecessary quotation marks (OK, scare arrowy thingies that Europeans use instead of quotation marks) that has given grammarian such fits and made Lynne Truss such a wealthy woman. The fish was cut into small chunks, about the same size as the gnocchi, so the whole dish had an even appearance.

I’m not really sure what the chicory was doing in the dish. Chicory is funny stuff. I don’t think I’d ever had it before arriving in Italy this time around, but it’s all over the place, and I’ve been eating it a lot. You’ll see it at the rosticceria or tavola calda in a big plate, sauteed with garlic and just crying out for a little squeeze of lemon. (Heck, one night I made just chicory for dinner, sauteed until just soft, with some shavings of pecorino to give it some body. It was shockingly good.) I don’t know if it’s just that it’s in season now, but man: it’s all over the place. This version of chicory was fine, good, great, but again, what’s the idea of putting it in the gnocchi? Inquiring minds want to know.

Course numero quattro was another, more substantial pasta dish: manichette alla gricia with broccoli. This dish was not only tasty, but also a gastrolexical eductation on a plate. I didn’t know what manichette would be—as it turns out, the word is the diminutive of manica, “sleeve”. And sure enough, manichette are little sleeves; tiny pasta tubes. I don’t know if there’s a pasta that’s named after the regular form of manica, but of course there’s the, um, embiggenative form manicotti, “big sleeves”. (Unless the –cotto part is from “cooked”. But I don’t think so, because then it would mean “cooked hands” and that’s just gross.)

I’d never had gricia sauce before. It turns out to be the cousin (or more likely, ancestor) of amatriciana: a pancetta-based sauce with white wine and pecorino, native to Lazio. In some ways it’s like carbonara: no eggs, but very rich. This was quite good, and I managed to keep my membership in the Clean Plate Club in spite of starting to fill up.

(The broccoli, you’ll be glad to know, was plain ol’ regular broccoli, cut up into tiny florets that absorbed the sauce oh so very well. And I knew what it was, you bet. Didn’t have to look that one up in a dictionary or google it or nothin’. Go me!)

The final non-dessert part of the meal was a rabbit fillet- or maybe a saddle? again, I’m betraying my lack of anatomical knowledge- cut into a sort of a round and served with a olive sauce (taggiasche olives, which I guess are from Liguria- yeah, I did have to google that one) and potatoes. I enjoyed this, and amazingly, so did Beth. She claims never to have eaten rabbit before, and that sounds about right: when we were in Italy back in the day, they’d sometimes serve it, but nary a slice of Thumper would cross her plate. So that’s a good thing.

After that pummeling of richness, Antico Arco lightened things up a little bit with a white peach grattachecca. Subtle, refreshing, wonderful. And finally, another dessert course: a sort of crepe stuffed with creme Chantilly and sliced strawberries. (This is one course I really wish I’d photographed: it was arranged like a horn spilling berries and cream; very pretty).

All in all, I was impressed by Antico Arco. It’s not cheap, but it’s also not outrageous for how good it is (you don’t have to get the tasting menu, and the a la carte selections are less expensive). And there aren’t that many Roman restaurants that serve modern food of this kind; it’s definitely interesting to see something like panzanella or gnocchi tweaked in this way. Also a good contrast with ‘Gusto, which has the same sort of idea, but is somewhat less successful; the cooking at AA has a level of confidence that lets them really pull it off.