A true taste of Italy

If you crave an authentic Italian lunch you could, I guess, takes a short plane ride to Rome or Milan and be more or less gratified before midday.

But even if the gourmand in you dreams of true pizzas, pastas, and risottos, there is no reason to go that far.

You should be able to check in locally, at one of the very few but outstanding local Italian establishments, and you could be half-way through your meal by the time you would get to the airport.

From a restaurant reviewer`s point of view, the good thing about being able to fly both quickly and cheaply to a country like Italy is that you do have the chance to form a real point of reference in your mind (or, more literally, in your mouth) about authentic Italian tastes.

On a recent trip to Bergamo, for instance, my better half and I acknowledged with wonder, a little disappointment, and a tentative, contradictory feeling of pride, that some pizzas in Budapest are actually better than in the mother country.

But this article is not be about the relative quality and thickness of the pizza crust. Instead, it will rightly praise Krizia, a more up-market venue of true value (which hasn`t actually got a single pizza on its menu), which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

To go into the relatively small and intimate restaurant you need to descend several steps, which we didn`t mind doing on a chilly, windy day that threatened some showers. The style was similar to that of the traditional restaurants I have been to in Italy: off-white table-cloths, tall and comfortable chairs, bottles of wine on show in one corner and cozy, Mediterranean touches of rough stone and old wooden beams here and there.

There were also some charming white curtains with a subtle embroidered motif on the windows and at the entrance, which lightened up the interior and revealed the actual care with which this seemingly simple place was put together.

To mark its decennial celebrations, Grazziano, the Italiano vero (true Italian) owner has put together a separate menu with prices dating back 10 years.

From it, my companion in food chose a warm sea food salad with light pesto, which came in at a reduced Ft1,800, a price acceptable now but perhaps quite expensive back then.

The mixture of warm sea food (a mussel in its shell, bits of salmon, cod liver, prawns and octopus) on a bed of green and red fresh lettuce leaves, was not only delicious, but also just plenty of it.

As a starter I chose something from the seasonal menu, which was exploring the culinary possibilities of rhubarb.

Full of flavor

I will not go too much into the details of this seasonal menu, because it will very likely be replaced soon by another, but I had a thick, substantial cold strawberry and rhubarb soup (Ft990), which was full of the taste and flavor of the fruit, with very little else added to it but for some mint leaves on top.

The creamy truffled risotto, covered in a thin layer of cheese from Asiago (Ft2,980) and sprinkled with nice looking flakes of truffles, thin and burnt around the edges, touched my taste buds in ways easier to imagine than to write about.

If I am to judge by the frequent comments on the excellent taste of the big chunks of fresh home-made pasta filled with delicate buffalo cheese, I would say that my friend was impressed with her meal, which was covered in a smooth and light broccoli sauce (Ft2,200).

It seemed almost compulsory to have the special house wine from Konyári and we ordered two glasses of the dry rosé.

Once on the path of self-indulgence, we decided to go even further and share the chocolate mousse (Ft1,000), although we were already full.

There are, however, two sad items of news I need to break: the background Italian music was truly cheesy but, thankfully, kept at a low volume.

The other is that, due to summer holidays, the Krizia will be closed in the upcoming days, and will only open again on Monday, July 23.



Ristorante Krizia

Pest, District VI, Mozsár utca 12.

Tel: 331-8711 or 06/30 961-5538

Open Mon-Sat

noon-3pm and 6:30pm- midnight

www.ristorantekrizia.hu

Quality of food *****

Service ****

Value for money *****

Atmosphere *****

Andreea Anca
www.budapestsun.com - Wednesday, July 11, 2007