Lunch at Piazza Duomo

Hello from Piemonte!

My day started a little chaotically – I finally kicked my jet lag and slept well, which is to say I overslept.  Quickly packed and had coffee and caught a taxi to the rental car office, then had to try to navigate a rental car out of central Milan in rush hour.  Whose idea was this again?

Siri just kept saying “return to the route…return to the route”.  Helpful.  Thanks, Siri.  

Once my phone’s GPS picked up where I was and Siri started making sense, though, I was on my way.  I gave myself three hours for a two hour drive, and good thing.  Most of the last extra hour was spent finding the restaurant once I got to Alba.  Did you ever see the episode of “Master of None” where the two friends get their rental car stuck in a narrow street in Italy?  Yeah.  Siri, it would appear, does not make judgement calls on where you should drive.  She just knows where the restaurant is.  Which is to say down a byzantine collection of twisted charming cobblestone streets that you would just adore if you were walking them…just not so much driving.

What’s extra amusing is that when I checked into my hotel in nearby Sinio late this afternoon, one of the employees gave me a map and a quick rundown of the area, ending with “and this is Alba – very charming old city, they don’t allow cars there”.  You don’t say.  (Epilogue: I found my way out, parked at a market outside of town, walked back in, and all was well.  Made the lunch reservation with time to spare)

But back to lunch.

[I realized I’ve skipped a few events – shopping in Milan yesterday (my credit card is bruised), a great dinner at Tano Passami L’olio last night (ditto, and worth it) – you’ll just have to take me out for a glass of wine when I get home to get those stories, because I’m too enthralled with the lunch I had today to write about anything else.]

Ristorante Piazza Duomo is, of course, down a tiny side street and damn near impossible to find.  Here’s the charming pink door that presents itself to you like platform 9 3/4 to Hogwart’s once it deems you’ve worked hard enough to find it.

You press a bell, explain that yes, you have a reservation, wait….wait….then click!  The door unlocks.  A nice lady who realizes you have no sense of direction and your Italian is terrible calls to you from upstairs to please come up and watch your step.  The stairwell is musty and plain, pea green concrete with metal railings, which really just serves to make the actual restaurant and dining room all the more charming when you enter.  I was seated in the corner, an absolutely perfect people watching perch, and this photo really doesn’t even do it justice.

As some of you know, I was a little nervous about this lunch.  Piazza Duomo is ranked as the 17th best restaurant in the world on the top 50 list, and has three Michelin stars.  It has eight tables in the main dining room and one private room where someone was having a birthday party.  (I know, right?  Who??  I was dying to know too).   I counted it as divine intervention that I got a reservation for one for lunch on a Tuesday.

I figured I would at the very least feel a little awkward.  Several hours of multiple courses, all the formality… surely I would feel self-conscious.  Nope.  So here’s the good news and the bad news:  everyone is on their phones, even at a place like this.  Two other Americans even had some serious camera equipment and were clearly recording the whole experience as if they were producing a documentary (who knows, maybe they were).  So while I mostly kept mine put away, that did give me the freedom to take photos of the food, send a text or two when there was a lull in the service…but honestly I was almost consistently entertained by the parade of beautiful food and wine.  It was like being part of a performance art project for one.

I ordered the larger and more traditional of the tasting menus, which was 11 courses.  Plus three “aperitivos”, each containing 3-6 different little bites.  I believe I counted 22 different bites/courses by the time it wrapped up 3 1/2 hours later.  The wine pairing would have been five glasses of wine, and since I had to drive to my hotel and ending up in an Italian jail with a DUI on day four of my vacation seemed like a bad idea, the somm let me pick three nicer glasses and just did small pours.  And they were each absolutely gorgeous.

I do actually have photos of all the courses, but rather than clutter this post with 22 photos, what follows are my favorites:

These teeny tiny mushrooms in strong peppery olive oil were heavenly on a cracker spread with liver paté 


Olives? No. Too easy. The green “olive” is veal tartare. The black “olive” is langoustine tartare

This “sandwich” is two chickpea crackers stuffed with sardines, grana padano, chicory, and mayonnaise.  The “tomato soup” is a tomato, orange, olive oil, and Campari cocktail

Sea bass ceviche with fresh herbs and flowers and lemon olive oil 

Sous-vide cod on potato cream – tied for my favorite with the next one

Polenta with rabbit ragout.  This one looks like nothing but was SO delicious.  I could have eaten four of these.  I wanted more and I can still taste it….

I’m staying tonight at Castello di Sinio, a honest to goodness castle that an American couple (she is amusingly quick to tell you, though, that she is originally from Luca even though she grew up in San Francisco – I met her when I checked in) renovated.  They used to be in the wine business, apparently, so they arranged my wine tour tomorrow.  I have a hunch I’m in good hands.  Two winery tours, lunch, and a master class in Barolo and Barbaresco in the late afternoon.

I may not need to eat for the rest of the week after today, but more wine sounds lovely….

Cheers!

Traveling Girl