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The Emperor (in Rome, no less) Has No Clothes
Now I understand the two women from Long Island that I met in the Rome train station in September. We were commiserating about how late our train was when they started to also complain about the terrible food in Italy.
Terrible food? In Italy?
"Where and what have you been eating?" I asked. They rattled off their bad experiences in Rome (among them, tough veal), in Florence (bad pizza, too many beans and not enough vegetables), and Venice (overpriced food served by rude waiters). I had to tell them that you must avoid quick-cooked meat like veal scaloppini in the south of Italy (including Rome). I told them Florence is not a good pizza town and that the locals love beans. And I said I had to agree about Venice, which is why I eat mainly in working men's wine bars, where they always have delicious cichetti – snacks. (Okay, when someone else is paying, there are a couple of chic fish restaurants that I adore.) In general, in order to eat well in Italy – in any country – you have to find out what the locals eat, and eat that. In Italy, cooking is so regional, that what will be good in one place won't necessarily be the thing to eat in another place.
With all my savvy about eating in Italy, however, I managed to have two of the worst meals of my life in Rome recently. Truly, in my life.
The first meal was at a two-starred Michelin restaurant, the most acclaimed restaurant in the city, La Pergola at the top of the Cavalieri Hilton. It proved to me once again that the Michelin guide cannot be trusted outside of France, and possibly not even there. The other was at Ristorante Panzirone, a genuine tourist trap on the Piazza Navona, one of Rome's main squares. I knew the Piazza Navona place was not going to be terrific, but it was convenient and I was being lazy. It was around the corner from where we were staying, and we were very tired. I figured it would be serviceable enough for a bowl of pasta, or a salad – something. I just had no idea how low a Roman restaurant could go, or how stupidly expensive this place was going to be.
La Pergola is one of those "The Emperor Has No Clothes" places, the emperor in this case being chef Heinz Beck, who is regularly touted as one of Italy's most creative chefs in the European media – TV, magazines … you get the picture. He is German, not Italian, although his place of birth has no bearing on anything I am about to say. I don't think. Among his creations the night I dined there, was a first course called "shrimp ice," granita di gamberetti . It was so fishy tasting that all I could think was that I was eating the ice that the fish market had used all day to keep its stock fresh – a bad fish market at that, that doesn't even sell really fresh fish. It smelled. Another sorry creation was a sort of strudel of whole wheat pastry filled with fig jam and a piece of fish. Imagine eating a Fig Newton with fish down the middle. Feh!
We were six people at the table, which, by the way, I had to reserve several weeks ahead with a credit card. "We don't usually have tables for six. Most of our clients come in twos," said the reservation manager when I called Rome to secure the table, explaining why I had to leave my American Express number. At the time, that sounded reasonable to me. After all, La Pergola is a hotel restaurant. But that was a lie. The night I walked through the dining room there were several tables for six, some fours, and only a few twos. Be that as it may, that wasn't the problem either.
I was on a research trip with a restaurateur client, his son (who is in the business), his wife, and two of his executives. We looked at the menu, saw that we would get little out of this for the project we were working on, and proceeded to order eight first courses – mostly costing 39 euro each, which is about $50 – yes, for pasta, and that dreadful shrimp ice – and only three main courses, which cost about $70 each. Our waiter then "drew himself up," as the old expression goes, and told us that we really should order one main course per person if we wanted to "experience the philosophy of the chef." That expression – "experience the philosophy of the chef" – elicited a giggle from all of us, which the waiter certainly did not like. In truth, it kept us laughing for the rest of the week, and we thought it may even have been worth the nearly $900 tab just to have that incident to laugh about.
By the way, we also ordered two bottles of fairly expensive wine.
To make a long story slightly shorter, we skipped dessert and left. Knowing my client, I can assure you that he left a substantial tip. Still, as he was waiting by the elevator to leave, the waiter left the restaurant, came into the hall and told him to never set foot in the restaurant again. He was, naturally, appalled. Who wouldn't be? He said "Get away from me." The waiter persisted. He said "Get away from me" again. The waiter continued to try to humiliate him. He yelled. The waiter called security.
Let's remember this is a hotel restaurant, and not anywhere near the center of Rome. You'd have to take an expensive cab ride to get anywhere else to eat. In fact, I always wonder why anyone would want to stay at the Hilton. I mean, you might as well be in New Jersey as Rome. (Not that there's anything wrong with New Jersey.) If I was staying at that hotel, and I was tired after a day of sightseeing or business meetings, and I wanted to just go upstairs to the hotel restaurant and take in the beautiful roof-top view and a plate of food, why should I be humiliated by a waiter for not ordering more. If, in order to "experience the philosophy of the chef" one needs to eat three courses, then let Heinz Beck make the menu a three-course deal with a fixed price, not offer an a la carte menu, which gives the option of ordering as little or as much as you want.
You may be thinking that for the waiter to have done what he did, we must have misbehaved in some way that I am not reporting. Well, even if that was so, the waiter was out of line. However, while my friends and I certainly do have the capacity to misbehave, we were totally gentlemen this evening. My client's wife is a real lady, a cultured and refined woman, and we would never embarrass her. Her presence definitely kept us in line.
I should have known better about La Pergola. Most of my Roman friends have told me it is a silly restaurant, and I have never, ever had a good experience at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Italy. And I should have known better about Panzirone on the Piazza Navona, too. Still, of the several restaurants with outdoor seating on the Piazza Navona, it was the most crowded. I figured, how bad could it be? The lasagna looked good, as did a few other dishes I saw on the tables.
We ordered some fried vegetables to start. Out came – for 10 euro, about $12 -- three slices of eggplant and two pieces of zucchini, all of them with the batter slipping off and greasy with oil that was bitter from overuse. Before I got to taste how bad it was, I complained to the waiter about the puny portion as he put the plate on the table. To his credit, he was embarrassed. He knew I was right, that this was not acceptable as a mixed vegetable fry. A few minutes later he brought some fried sweet peppers. They were greasy and awful, too.
We ordered the good-looking lasagna. It was gross – a pile of mush with sauce. The eggs in the spaghetti alla carbonara were scrambled. The house wine cost 11 euros a half bottle and it was bad chardonnay. At lunch that afternoon, I had paid 9 euros for a whole bottle of perfectly pleasant white from the hills south of the city. Of course, part of what you are paying for at Panzirone is a seat on the Piazza Navona, with its gorgeous fountains and great people watching. Still, the food could not have been worse.
After the bad meal, we went across the piazza to the famous Tre Scalini so my sister, with whom I was traveling, could have a taste of its tartuffo, the ice cream dessert that was created by this café. Well, even Tre Scalini has succumbed to the indiscriminate tastes of Rome's tourist hordes. The tartuffo ain't what it used to be. It barely tasted like chocolate. We each had two bites then threw it away. I must say, the cashier showed concern when he saw we throw away half the ice cream. "Isn't it good?" he asked. "We just ate too much already," I answered, which satisfied him.
Enough gripping.
Happy Thanksgiving.
P.S. If you are still looking for some Thanksgiving side dishes and desserts, don't forget to check out the Food Maven's Index, or use the search engine at the top of the page.
