Mauro Ricciardi Alla Locanda Dell’Angelo

Maybe there’s no such thing as the color blue. Maybe stones can sing. There’s no good evidence that what we perceive as the reality really is the reality. But there’s tons of evidence that our senses are playing tricks on us. The seashell that sounds like the crashing of waves. Or that glass of Limoncello that tastes great when you’re sitting on a terrace on the Amalfi coast, but somehow loses its magic when you’re enjoying it on a balcony in Hamburg-Stellingen. Or the fumes of a two-stroke scooter engine. Where others smell the sharp sting of gasoline, i smell a Vespa Primavera riding through the narrow streets of Firenze. And also my highly pubescent 16 year old self driving my Aprilia SR 50 on questionably picturesque country roads in the bavarian outskirts. Ahhh, freedom. There’s limits to this form of transcendence, though. For example when a lobster claw tastes like gasoline, which is what happened to us at Locanda Dell’Angelo. An unusual mistake in a one-starred michelin restaurant that casts its shadow over the whole visit. No memories of Vespas, but of the mutual weirdness that occured when we told the waiter and the response was “well, it was cooked with a gas grill”. The weirdness continued when the pasta of the next course was quite undercooked, but we didn’t want to start a cultural-culianric war with a discussion about where al-dente begins. Not as Germans in Italy. Fortunately it got better, the sea-bream was outstanding and the pork ribs just fell from the bone. As much as the one flammable substance ruined the evening, the other slightly flammable fluid kind of saved it: the wine pairing was astonishing, with interesting rarities and vintage red dreams. Well, if we can’t trust our senses, at least we numbed them in the best way possible.