The hotel concierge recommended Scarpetta for our first dinner. This Italian trattoria, I repeat “Italian Trattoria”, doesn’t serve pasta.
A small and vibrant restaurant with an “L” shape is open for lunch and dinner. A happy and welcoming staff, dimmed lights, candles decorating the tables a floor covered with wood with a view on the two streets facing it.
On the menu: Vitello tonnato, bruschetta, one single salad, agnolotti, gnocchi, oriechette, three pizzas, three kinds of meat and Italian cheeses. This is the menu, nothing else, served in small portions.
I ordered everything except the Agnolotti which contains garlic inside it: they are square shaped pasta like ravioli. I couldn’t eat Gnocchi. As well because it contains garlic inside it; what’s left? Eating salad and pizza at a Trattoria! Call it a Pizzeria!!!
The Vitello tonnato is too oily and too salty. Four slices of roast beef topped with a cream of tuna and some cilantro which spoil the texture mix sticking to your teeth: way too salty!
The bruschetta is dull: it needs some acidity, life, freshness and a crunchy texture. I didn’t like it.
The salad; crunchy pistachio, a creamy sauce, butter purple lettuce... the sauce is too creamy, a lack of lemon and freshness.
Two plates of pasta, gnocchi, and oriechette. The gnocchi is overcooked, but the sauce is good. The oriechette is an interesting plate of broccoli and pasta cooked al dente with crumbles on top and an after note of spiciness. The pasta has nothing to write home about.
The pizzas: the two small-sized pizzas look good but are too chewy! Very intensely chewy bread covered with ingredients of all sorts. I had jaw pain after finishing my quarter. The veal is not cleaned well; it’s gelatin slides unpleasantly under the teeth.
The pluses:
- I loved the bread.
The minuses:
- The restaurant doesn’t even smell food; st Italian restaurants, you are enchanted by fresh aromas of basil and olive oil.
- I didn’t feel the Italian flavors at all! Is food Italian? I doubt!
- Portions are too small.
- They don’t have pasta dishes.
- Food is unjustifiably expensive.
- Blood orange sorbet needs sweetness.
Not worth trying! Very expensive -170$ for very small portions. The hotel concierge was wrong!
