My Extended Italian Family

This post is over a week late, but one of my best experiences in Italy so far.
My dad visited over a week ago, and while trying to get out of the rain one day, we stumbled into a restaurant off Via Trastevere.
The secret to finding a good restaurant in Italy is quite simple: find someplace where no one speaks English. Not hard to do, but a challenge once you’re in the restaurant. But the reward was well worth it when we found “La Vecchia Bottega del Vino” at 9A/11 Via S. Maria del Pianto.
Brown wood shelving stacked 4 high to the ceiling with wine, impassioned romans having intense conversations(evident by theatrical hand motions) over glasses of vino, and a lime-green bottle of Olia di Oliva on every goomba’s table. Oh baby, you can’t go wrong. We were ushered in for lunch sometime around 1 p.m.
I knew we were in business when the owner addressed us in Italian despite our undeniably American looks. I had to work with what little Italian I knew, but we had only ordered two glasses of Barbera D’Alba(a Hilberg 2004, in case you’re interested) when a plate of smoked fish arrived. Thin slices of salmon, tuna and a few other pesce(fish) sat atop a salad of rugetta, a bitter but tasty green leaf that looks like dandelion, and the freshest cherry tomatoes I’ve tasted.
The next plate sold us on this place. I can’t really describe everything we ate, beauty would be lost in translation. In Croatia, we ate well. In Italy, we dined on art. My mouth is watering just remembering the plate. As dad said, it was a “cacophony of positive flavor.” That’s my dad.
The zucchini here is picked earlier, and is therefore smaller, tastier and more flavorful. A mountain of zucchini slices was the center of the plate, surrounded by different appetizer like pieces of food. Prosciutto wrapped around hard Italian cheese with a sprig of rosemary. Zucchini flowers stuffed with a cream of ricotta, parmesan and pistachios. Or ricotta in pineapple slices sprinkled with cinnamon. Every one was different, each was a work of art.
That was the best lunch I’ve ever had. But then we came back for dinner the next night.
We arrived before they opened and introduced ourselves to the owner, Gino, who seated us, gave us a tour of his private wine cellar(there was no one else in the restaurant except for Gino, Dad and I, and Gino’s brother), his 2000 year old Roman column and 2 glasses of Brunello di Montalcino. If you know anything about the town of Montalcino, then you know it’s wine, Brunello. It’s perhaps one of the best wines in all of Italy, starting somewhere around 30 euros a bottle and going up to 600 euros a bottle(when I was there with a school trip, I bought a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino for 20 euros. It’s 95% the same wine and much cheaper. But do let it age, dad wanted to drink it and it was much to early. You owe me wine, dad).
This wine was good, but nothing compared to Gino’s choice for the night. Gino speaks only a few words of english, my dad speaks no Italian, but there was never a misunderstanding between the two of them that night. By the time we left, they were brothers. Dad asked where Gino was from, next thing you know Gino has the map out explaining where his hometown is, he’s bringing us meatballs made by his grandmother, we’re getting loads of appetizers.
But what really amazed me here was watching my dad. Over dinner, dad kept asking about ingredients, about Gino, about his family and his restaurant. Dad was genuinely interested. And that’s where the story got interesting for me. I remember stories about my grandfather, and dad always used to talk about his father’s hunting trips out west. He would go out west, walk up to some farmer’s door and ask to spend the night. Years later, he would return and find they had added a room or an extra building just for Stan. I never understood how he did that until I watched dad and Gino talk. Dad really is interested in Gino, he really wants to know everything about the food, the ingredients, the wine. But more importantly, he’s interested in Gino. They didn’t speak each other’s language, but understood every word.
After another plate of fish, and then a collection of different food arts, dad and I enjoyed a Primitivo from Gino’s region of southern Italy. THAT was an amazing wine, better than the Brunello.
Later in the night, we had desert and Gino opened his private collection of Grappa(5 bottles!) for us. On the house, courtesy of Gino and Papa Rudz. Who better to enjoy grappa with than dad? 7 glasses of Grappa later, we left, dad and Gino exchanged emails, and they hugged. Somehow we found our way back to the hotel.