L’officina – fine dining for the people
My favorite Restaurant in Perugia at the moment. All fits together. Attentive and gentle hosts. An elegant, but not oppressive environment, and obviouisly the food, which is miles away from Umbrian home cooking. I have been there 4 times now and I am planning to become an abitue’. Main reason for this is the unbeatable ratio between quality and price at l’officina. Tasting menus between 30 and 45 Euros, topped with greetings from the kitchen at the beginning at at the end; Another goodie: no obligation for the whole table to take the same tasting menu; there is “mare”, “terra” and vegetarian and the menus are 6 courses long – and there are additional greetings from the kitchen.
aperitivi: greetings from the kitchen. among those a panzanella and a tomato jelly with seppia
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The wine list is long and I am not forced to drink the bottles that I have anyway in my cellar.
But not everything on the list is available. And some information is outdated. But everyone, who maintains databases, knows.
Last time we had an excellent Chardonnay from the Valle d’Aosta, which is shown here with the cost of the meal. Even alla card you don’t spend more than with the tasting menus, but the tasting menus are worthwhile
starters
The storione (left image) with fermented tomatoes was sublime. I am now copying their fermentation techniques for tomatoes. I still have to learn how to caramelize a sgombro. Nixy did not like the combination of fermented and raw meat. I liked the different tastes with the raw Chianina obviously haveing the lead-
Many of these dishes I would struggle to prepare at home. I might not even want: The chefs at l’officina compose, the single element merges into the composition and disappears in a new entity. In my cooking the main ingredient alsways remains the main ingredient.
The primi
And it happens: the “tagliolini al Nero d i seppia” were so salty, that it was even for a Wuhan girl too much. We send them back to the kitchen, which delivere in due time a version, which made you enjoy the dish. I fusillii di Pietro Massi I will copy in my kitchen. the combination of osso buco and crabmeat gives this feeling of culinary paradise only produced by cook who loves her work.
And then: we were full. At leaast there was no space for a “secondo”, just for a dessert.
and there was again a Pre dessert as a greeting from the kitchen.
Do I need to add that they serve excellent bread and also a bit of olive oil?