Over spring break, I was lucky enough to travel to Italy — Foodie Paradise — with my family. Even though I wasn’t “on the job” for WSN, I spent a disproportional amount of my trip in restaurants, and simply had to write about my favorite experience.
On the first night of our vacation in the Central Italian region of Umbria, my family and I spent hours traveling winding country roads looking for a place to eat. We somehow ended up in a tiny mountain hamlet called Carnaiola, where we found La Locanda di Desideria, the only restaurant for miles. We were grateful to find any restaurant at all, but we had no idea of the spectacle that awaited us inside.
Walking through the Locanda’s wrought-iron doors, we were transported to medieval times. The restaurant, a former olive mill, features a vaulted ceiling and long wooden benches. The classic scene was slightly offset, however, by John Lee Hooker’s blues guitar wailing over the PA system. Suddenly, a man wearing a chef’s hat and black tracksuit burst through the kitchen doors, shouted for us to sit wherever we want and retreated back to the kitchen.
As we found a table, the man returned to introduce himself as Christian, the Locanda’s owner, chef and host. Rather than give us menus, he simply told us what he was cooking that night: “Un po’ di pasta, un po’ di carne.“ He motioned to his only waitress to bring us a pitcher of local red wine and, minutes later, emerged from the kitchen carrying our primi piatti.
Despite Christian’s unconventional approach, his food reflects his classic culinary training. He learned the basics cooking with his nonna in the region of Le Marche, attended a culinary and hospitality school there, then traveled for 13 years, working throughout Europe as a sous-chef. He opened the Locanda three years ago, combining his passion for fine food with his own personal flair. His mp3 collection provides the restaurant’s soundtrack, ranging from blues, to classic rock, to metal — no medieval lute music here.
There are few traces of Christian’s rock ‘n’ roll personality in his poetically composed pastas: gnocchi filled with ricotta cheese and topped with fresh porcini mushrooms; tortelloni stuffed with a ricotta-pear mixture with a creamy black truffle sauce; and chestnut-flour pappardelle finished with a meat ragu and shaved pecorino cheese. Christian told us what order to eat the pastas in (gnocchi, tortelloni, pappardelle — the latter tastes the best cold), and dashed back into the kitchen.
As we gushed over our food, Christian re-emerged, brandishing a huge platter of pasta with homemade pesto. He shoved it under our noses, taunting us with what we couldn’t have. Then he whisked the plate away, serving it to what seemed like the entire teenage population of Carnaiola, holding court in the back of the restaurant. He flashed us a fiendish grin as he headed once more into his kitchen, still laughing at his joke.
We could have happily finished our meal after the first course, but Christian, like any self-respecting Italian cook, would never have let us leave without feeding us some meat first. Our secondo wasn’t just any meat, but thick, juicy steaks from the huge, white chianina cows that are raised only in nearby Tuscany. He served this with a family-style portion of spinach and rosemary potatoes, fragrant and glistening with fresh olive oil.
Christian treats both regulars and newcomers with the same warmth that one would expect from a close friend. When we finished our meal and asked for the check, Christian insisted that we share some grappa with him. As he sat backwards in his chair, sipping his drink, we all got to talking about music. When he found out that my brother Jay liked Metallica, he jumped out of his seat, eyes wide, and ran to his computer. Moments later, “Enter Sandman” echoed through the cavernous room. As if he were at a concert, Christian banged his head and gave Jay a high five.
Before we knew it, an hour — and several glasses of grappa — had gone by. Before we stood up to say our goodbyes, Christian dashed into the kitchen one last time. He returned with a bottle of the same grappa we had just been drinking. We tried to pay for it, but Christian made it clear that it was a gift, a token of his friendship. After a long goodbye of double-kisses and Italian salutations, Christian walked us to the door and waved good-bye as we drove off. Somehow, over pasta, grappa and Metallica, we four American tourists had become regulars at the Locanda.
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