How do you know if you're sitting in a good Italian restaurant?
Created: 06/10/2022, 18:30
By: Maria Wendel
Italian restaurants abound, but how do you know if they have authentic cuisine and delicious food?
The following tips can help.
Do you have a favorite Italian restaurant that you keep coming back to?
Congratulations!
But if you are looking for something new, for example because you have moved or are no longer satisfied with your previous choice, you are faced with the question: How do you find a good Italian?
You can use a few simple criteria to find out whether an Italian restaurant lives up to its promise.
Pizza, pasta... and nothing else on the menu?
No sign of authentic Italian cuisine.
© Rachel Annie Bell/Imago
Finding a good Italian restaurant: A look at the menu will provide you with information
In Italy, dinner is not just eaten on the side, the
cena
is celebrated with several courses: First there is
antipasti
(starter), then the
primo piatto
(usually a pasta dish), followed by the
secondo piatto
(meat or fish with salad or vegetables ).
).
Those with a sweet tooth can then treat themselves to something sweet (dolce) and a coffee.
But beware:
Cappuccino is drunk in Italy and with a real Italian only in the morning.
In the evening, at the end of a dinner, there is an espresso (Italian:
caffè
).
So how do you recognize an authentic Italian restaurant?
All of these menu options should also be reflected on the menu.
A good Italian not only offers the typical classics such as pizza and pasta, but also meat dishes such as saltimbocca (veal escalope with ham and sage) or vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce).
At the same time, the pizza section of an authentic Italian menu does not span ten pages with all sorts of different toppings.
Good Italians usually limit themselves to the classics, such as:
Pizza Neapolitan
Pizza Margherita
Pizza Romana
Pizza Capriciosa
Pizza Quattro stagioni
Pizza Quattro formaggi
Above all, you won't find a pizza Hawaii, which causes divided opinions worldwide, or ingredients like corn, peas or lamb on a pizza on an authentic Italian menu.
Finding a good Italian restaurant: the art lies in simplicity
Order simple dishes like pasta with tomato sauce or aglio e olio.
Simple, but a real treat for the palate when prepared well with high-quality ingredients.
If these dishes don't taste good, you don't need to try anything else in the restaurant, then the kitchen doesn't seem to be authentic.
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Clear signs that it is not a good Italian
You can clearly tell from some dishes that they were not prepared by an authentic Italian chef:
Cream in the carbonara: An authentic carbonara is only creamy thanks to the egg yolks, in the original Italian recipe cream is never added.
Insalata Caprese: The appetizer salad made of tomatoes, mozzarella and basil is served with balsamic vinegar and pepper?
This is also unusual for authentic Italians: here the fine salad only needs olive oil and salt.
Cheese with fish: the waiter puts parmesan on the table because you ordered a pasta dish with fish or risotto with seafood?
Italians would throw their hands up in horror.
In Italian cuisine, fish is never combined with cheese.
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Good Italian restaurant: a house wine that is not expensive
A good Italian offers a good quality and inexpensive house wine.
This is not the expensive top wine, but an open house wine tastes best as an accompaniment to a meal, and it shouldn't overpower the fine taste of the dishes.
If there are only expensive wines and no house wine on the menu, then you shouldn't visit this restaurant again.
