Η Επιστροφή - The Return (2011) – Part 4 – Meal in the Mountains

Last night I dined in the gourmet restaurant of the Alpen Royal Hotel – which is under the supervision of Chef Felice Lo Basso.

It was wonderful, creative and interesting food, accompanied by delicious wine from the Alto Adige. 

However, while the meal overall was not good enough to enter my “Top Ten Greatest Meals” for a variety of reasons, the food itself was so good, I feel compelled to write about it.

The setting:

In the basement floor of the hotel, the gourmet restaurant is set apart from the other dining areas.

It was far too brightly lit for my taste, making the candle that was lit on the table entirely superfluous in terms of both light and mood – its only remaining function being decorative.

The table style, linen and overall décor was pleasant if a bit dull with comfortable chairs and tables large enough to not feel cramped at.

The music – well, the music was a crime. Elevator “muzak” that comprised of reworked versions of pop and rock classics to a varying beats from Samba to lounge with an insipid collection of dull voices re-interpreting songs from U2 to the Rolling Stones to Guns N Roses. Terrible, awful and after a while, painful. This alone was enough to strike the meal from the Top Ten list for starters.

My waiter – I’ll call him Guiseppe – was friendly and attentive with broken English that just stopped short of comedy English in the style of an Italian “Clouseau”. We ended up conversing in Italian mainly for it was easier for both of us, but he was keen as mustard to try his English, bless him.

Amuse Bouche #1:

I began the meal with a glass of Prosecco while studying the menu. During this contemplation I was served my first “amuse bouche” – a small cold soup of melon, kiwi, raspberry, celery and blackberry. It was incredibly fresh and together with the Prosecco, it was a lively and vibrant start to the meal.

I consider the “amuse bouche” stage of a great meal as the gastronomic equivalent of a musical “Toccata”. The Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music that precedes the main piece. It uses the notes and scales of the main piece and is usually flamboyant and elaborate – allowing the virtuoso musician to warm-up, sensitize the audience to what is to come and also show-off a little. The Toccata exists also in Eastern European / Turkish and Middle Eastern music where it is referred to as the “taqsim” – and is predominantly used in music involving santour, bouzouki, oud / outi and other stringed instruments. While in classical music the most well known producer of toccatas was of course J.S. Bach.

Amuses Bouche #2

Amuses Bouche

While I was still studying the menu, the next set of amuse bouche arrived. And quite a collection it was too -  a major gastronomic toccata that really set the scene well for what was to follow:

1. A rice wafer, very crisp, with dried flakes of black olive  - crunchy, light and delicious
2. A nest of fried pasta with a parmesan filling – another delightful bite which added softness to the crunch of the pasta and moved the selection on in terms of texture choices . . .
3. Next was a Parmesan mousse with black truffle caviar - light as a feather, using the little knobs of the black truffle as caviar on top of the mouthful of mousse. It was sublime.
4. Then a tiny Chou pastry bun, about the size of the tip of one’s thumb, filled with a cream of smoked aubergine (egg plant). The texture had gone full circle from outright crunch to soft and creamy and this little savoury profiterole melted in my mouth.
5. After this, the next taste was a small piece of speck of duck wrapped around a piece of white peach and some snow peas. Again delicious with the duck giving a rich, meaty, smoky flavor counterbalanced by the light flesh of the peach and its sweetness and the fresh, garden note from the snow pea. Very good.
6. Then to a deep-fried miniature calzone of buffalo mozzarella and anchovy. A little inverted suitcase of flavours, nicely balanced and perfectly cooked.
7. Finally, in this little suite of tastes, I moved to the final piece, which Guiseppe had suggested I leave till last to refresh my palate. A pair of watermelon balls sandwiching a piece of Japanese mint. Indeed very refreshing and cool. 

By the time I had finished this selection of amuses bouche, as you can imagine, I was quite inspired by this chef and his ideas.

I decided to go for the Tasting Menu “Raw Fish at High Altitude”. While the A La Carte Menu had some delicious sounding dishes, I couldn’t settle on anything easily and wanted to continue this teasing and flirting of my taste buds by the man in the kitchen . . .so the tasting menu made sense.

The Tasting Menu

I asked for Guiseppe’s advice on wine to accompany my choice of raw fish dishes. He rather unhelpfully suggested that I go for white . . . that resulted in my responding with just a hint of sarcasm. Then we got down to it and discussed Sauvignon’s – finally he recommended the Sauvignon “Quartz” from the Alto Adige town of Terlano. It is called Quartz – I learned later – because of the quartz porphyry rock in the soil it grows in. This gives the soil a red volcanic colour – while the wine keeps a grassy and full gooseberry flavor. Quite delicious it turned out to be and I thanked Guiseppe for his recommendation at the end of the meal.

And so to work I went on the Tasting Menu – six courses with a pre-dessert in addition.

Bread, etc:

Bread & Accompaniments

Guiseppe presented me with seven kinds of bread – all home made – from Focaccia to Grissini – each with a unique flavor and textures.

Accompanying the bread were four spreads – including butter from Normandy salted with black salt, a spicy tomato paste from Puglia in Southern Italy, green olive tapenade from Sicily and a horseradish cream with green apple pieces. Nice.

And if this were not enough, Guiseppe brought me four different salts – a Sea Salt from the British Isles, a pink salt from France, Black Salt and a salt made with crushed hibiscus which was the most delicious and which I couldn’t help but put into my hands and eat on its own by dabbing a moist finger into the little pile in my hand. Not the most sophisticated dining behavior, but taste is taste baby!

Course #1:

A Wild Black Pearl Oyster served with lemon caviar and cucumber foam- accompanied by a gin & tonic.

Oysters & Gin!

It was beautifully presented in a half bottle with a tiny miniature gin & tonic on the side. The gin used was Hendrick’s - a unique gin in that it is infused with rose and cucumber in the distillation process in addition to the usual botanicals and juniper.

The cucumber foam was incredible light, like a cloud, but full of flavor and deliciously fresh. The oyster lurking underneath yielded some of its liquor to the cucumber foam with the lemon coming through to add that pinch of acidity to the strong salty fish flavor and the gentle cucumber veneer. The gin and tonic added some sparkly and botanical notes from the juniper flavor which beautifully completed the sensation . . . indeed it was an addictive activity putting a small piece in ones mouth, savoring the flavor for a few seconds and then sipping the gin & tonic to add the finish.

A delicious and auspicious start.

Course #2:

Grilled watermelon with raw scallops, pea shoots and pecan nuts.

Water Melon & Scallops

This was a very different dish – also very delicate with quite intriguing flavours and textures. The watermelon flesh was soft and rich, gushing out its juice that was quite strong in flavor. The scallops were cool to the tongue and delicate as scallops always are, with the pea shoots adding a tiny zing of garden freshness, while for me the note that gave the dish its character was the very finely sliced pecan nuts which gave a woody, organic flavor to the dish and added a textural bass note with their chewy nut crunch. An interesting and daring combination of ingredients, which I was skeptical about initially, but which one me over as I ate it.

The Sauvignon Quartz adding a tangy, citrus, grass twist to the palate – and then refreshing with my beloved San Pelegrino.

Course #3:

Cuttlefish, Caviar & Gold . . . in a smoke cloud . . .

Cuttlefish, caviar & gold - the smoke had departed by this point!

This was a very inventive dish but also very simple. The dish came served in a large white bowl containing a small plastic sphere. Inside the sphere was the food, and the smoke.

Guiseppe lifted the lid dramatically and with a flourish – in a way only an Italian waiter can – and proceed to allow the smoke to waft out of the sphere and around the dish. It was clear that after the smoke had been out inside the dish it had been chilled, because when it escaped it was cool and fell around the food and the dish.

Inside was a nest of raw cuttlefish which had been finally julienned to make it into a kind of seafood spaghetti twirled together with a generous dollop of black sturgeon caviar on top and littered with gold leaf. If the cuttlefish was the “spaghetti”, the caviar was the “sauce” and the gold leaf the “cheese” sprinkled over the top. Visually very appealing and a clever in-joke from the chef in terms of fooling the dinner with visual gastronomic conventions which are then inverted with the actual ingredients. Magnifique.

The flavours were very intense – the cuttlefish VERY fishy and strong flavoured with the caviar adding salt and intensity on top. The gold leaf was of course flavourless, but fun and visually very appealing.  This was just the right sized portion as it was very rich indeed. Any more would have been too much.

The smoke (from burned oak chips I learned from enquiring) had left its imprint on the food in a very subtle way, leaving a hint of the forest and the fire on this otherwise totally raw set of ingredients.

Course #4:

Dentex carpaccio with poppy seeds, sea urchin ice cream and coconut milk.

Dentex Carpaccio & Sea Urchin Ice Cream

The dentex is a fish somewhat similar to a sea bream – one of my favourite fishes. It was beautifully presented on a glass topped box contained sand, shells seaweed etc and was very pretty.

The meat of the fish was cool to the taste, laid out in slices on the dish with a spread of the coconut milk over the top and sprinkled with the poppy seeds which had a surprisingly strong effect on the taste, providing minute moments of crunch with a slightly sour taste to counterbalance the smooth, gentle coconut milk.

The star of this course, however, was the sea urchin ice cream. It is very difficult to describe just how stunning this was. Firstly it was a proper ice cream in a beautiful orange / pink colour, served on its own spoon. The flavour was certainly from the sea, a super fresh oceanic burst combined with an almost – but not quite – sweetness that may have just been an idea rather than a reality. The texture was creamy, cool and deliciously smooth and it married perfectly to the fish with the coconut milk as the “connection” between the two.

Innovative and interesting.

Course# 5:

Langoustine with aubergine and burrata cheese parmigiano, black olive powder.

Return to Italy with hints of the Tricolore . . .

I was now beginning to wonder how the meal would progress in terms of taste and texture, believing that it was going to be a struggle to improve on the previous dishes.

However, I was wrong to doubt this Chef’s imagination.

This final dish before the dessert finale came full circle and brought us back to Italy with a classic dish from the south – the Neapolitan Parmigiana, adapted and adopted to become the “wrapping” around a superb raw langoustine. Instead of ordinary mozzarrella, the chef used “burrata” (literally meaning “buttered”) which is a mixture of mozzarella with cream, creating a much smoother, silkier cheese in the process and adding a delicacy to this miniature Parmigiana which clothed the raw and naked langoustine.

The plate was beautifully presented in a ray of fresh colours, and the Italian references underlined with the colours of the tricolore flag suggested in the palate of the dish. A hint of basil, a splash of tomato, just enough to keep the flavours dancing on the tongue as one savoured the mouthful and bit down into the semi gelatinous flesh of the langoustine.

A relaxed and confident triumph to end the savoury part of the meal and a nice return to home for the Chef who comes from Southern Italy but developed his career in Northern Italy by the coast. A southern Italian classic (Melanzane Parmigiana) married to the fruit of the sea, the Langoustine, and dressed in the Italian flag. Very clever stuff.

Course #6:

Pre-dessert of pineapple and basil ice cream

Slipped into the gastronomic conversation was a brief pause to refresh the palate before the main dessert. A delicious pineapple and basil ice cream with a piece of dried pineapple as an accompaniment – functioning as an exotically sweet wafer alongside the ice cream, again the Chef playing visual games as well as developing intense and interesting flavour combinations. Full marks on form and function.

Course #7:

Prickly Pear Sorbet in almond and orange waffle, pink grapefruit mousse.

Flavour & texture married in perfect harmony

I felt throughout the meal that this Chef has a keen sense for textural combinations as well as visual appeal and flavour harmonies.

This was fully borne out in the final act of this meal – the dessert.

The waffle of orange and almond was citrusy, nutty, crunchy, warm and organic tasting, protecting the tangy and incredibly refreshing prickly pear sorbet underneath which was surrounded in turn by a “moat” of the pink grapefruit mousse which was soft, creamy with the slightest acidity in the aftertaste to remind you that it was grapefruit – and at the same time – cut through the sweetness of the waffle.

The textural contrasts were extraordinary, as were the lovely flavours crossing the spectrum of sweet to bitter and back again.

What was also remarkable about the dessert was the “lightness” which suited the overall meal, which while intense in flavour, had avoided being dense or heavy in any way.

I was deeply impressed with the cooking and the imagination of this Chef De Cuisine. A joy to eat.

Coffee, biscuits and a mint:

I concluded the meal by finishing the delicious Sauvignon and drinking not one but two cups of lovely nutty black espresso with some homemade cookies, and a lovely chocolate mint.

All in all this was a stunning meal from the perspective of the food – and indeed the wine. Excellent presentation, wonderful flavours, great balance, tremendous innovation and imagination and an intelligence and playfulness with the idea of each dish that added an exciting dimension to the dining experience.

BUT . . . it does not go down as a GREAT meal because it was incomplete. My mood – nothing to do with the restaurant – was not the best, although it improved throughout as I was treated to this splendid food. The service was fine, indeed good even, but not remarkable. The atmosphere was unrewarding – I was the only diner in this restaurant in what is its lowest season in terms of visitors. The décor was neutral, not to say dull. The lighting was way too bright – like a hospital or an operating theatre.

Most of all  - as I mentioned at the beginning - the music was atrocious – a meal like this deserved either something rich and deep like Bach – perhaps a Fugue, which would have fitted the rotating ideas in the food and service beautifully. Or another alternative would have been jazz –something beautiful but abstract, like Miles Davis for example. BUT NOT F@CKING ELEVATOR MUZAK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

And finally, the meal was again consumed alone, and while I took many tasting notes and photographs and even chatted with a friend who is equally gastronomically debauched, it was food that was worthy of conversation, discussion, sharing and celebration.

In Beaune I was also alone, but the atmosphere and the other diners created a human dynamic that was pleasant and rewarding as I saw that everyone was enjoying the food as I was. But in Val Di Gardena I was alone in an empty room – and that was sterile and detached.

So I would certainly commend this restaurant and the Chef, and indeed recommend it to anyone, with the caveats of musical punishment, poor lighting and average décor. And if you are to go, go with company that cherishes great food or at least in the busy season in the Winter or early Spring.

Bon appetit!