How many so far?
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This is the kind of food I want in Milan. Adding this one to my list!
Coincidentally, we spent about $60 per person for 2 plates each (some variation on appetizer, first, second course for the 2 plates, wine, and sometimes shared dessert) during our January trip. This was surprisingly consistent. Less than a comparable meal in the US would run.
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great choices all! Judith and Holofernes is a great theme, should keep you on your toes, I think!
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Eating in many European countries is much cheaper than in the US. We couldn’t believe how cheap our meals in Sicily were, which is I believe one of the poorest regions in Italy.
Everything we had was locally sourced & delicious.
And, of course, nobody expects a 20%+ tip. Here’s an older thread I started a couple of years ago on the topic.
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I’ve lost or maybe repressed the count but the answer is a lot. As I’m sure @Phoenikia can attest, the problem isn’t just Judith and Holofernes but also Salome and St. John the Baptist. My wife would never cut off my head but I’m not so sure about other parts of the body The advice to always sleep with one eye open comes to mind.
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These 2 themes were extremely popular in Art History classes in the 1990s, especially after some journals covered the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi.
I hadn’t thought about J + H, for a while, and then, a few J + H paintings came up as part of the story in 1997’s Painted Lady film I watched on Thu night.
The theme of another strong woman, Queen Christina of Sweden, came up at the opera last night, in La Reine- Garçon.
V + his wife would be quite familiar with this Gentileschi at the Uffizi in Florence.
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I was going to give Milan a complete miss in September, but this looks so good, I am reconsidering! Thanks for writing!
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We had a reservation at Ratanà for our last night in Milan, but a friend who owns a couple of pizza shops performed an intervention, insisting that Milan, not Rome, was the second-best pizza destination in Italy after Naples.
For those of you who don’t know, disappointed with the state of pizza in our NYC suburb, I went down the pizza rabbit hole, learning how to make artisanal pizza in our home oven and later in a high-temp (1000°F) pizza oven we imported from Italy. Eventually, I joined a group of pizza obsessives in NYC, subsequently interviewed for and was offered the perfect retirement gig, a pizza tour guide for Scott’s Pizza Tours but it turns out that the patterns of our retirement travel precluded any sort of sane work schedule.
Anyway, after a bunch of research, I decided we’d give Da Zero a try. Da Zero originated in Salerno, and many of their ingredients, from the flour to the cheese, meat, and vegetables, are carefully sourced from farms in that region.
We shared two pizzas: a Forestella and their Capricciosa Da Zero. The Forestella was easily the best Neapolitan-style pizza I’ve ever eaten, surpassing NYC’s Da Michele and Song E’ Napule. It consisted of yellow tomato sauce, DOP buffalo mozzarella, spicy sausage, Salerno goat cacioricotta, and basil. The bake was perfect, the crust light and airy, and the ingredients complemented each other beautifully. and of course the basil, applied in a @small_h approved fashion 
The Capricciosa Da Zero was equally well-baked in the Neapolitan canotto style, which takes a little more skill. Perhaps they chose this style to support the mound of ingredients heaped on the pizza, but the overall impression was an antipasto plate sitting on top of an incredible pizza crust. In the end, it didn’t work for our palates, and we ate just half the pie.
So a little best of times, worst of times; a night full of contrasts, rich indulgence, and minor disappointment, the heights of Neapolitan craftsmanship and the weight of over-ambition. I’m thinking I’d still like to get to naples, if only for the sfogiatelle, but it’s going to be hard to beat the best pie at da zero.
best,
ps from an arts perspective, the Duomo in Milan was a little disappointing. The interior space didn’t flow well, and the paintings were dark and hard to see. On the other hand, the exterior and the terraces were simply spectacular.
And speaking of spectacular, The Last Supper exceeded our expectations. The brilliance of the composition and the way da Vinci achieved perspective was just stunning. My photo doesn’t do it justice, if you’re going to visit Milan, try to plan ahead and go.
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pizza looks super good glad you had it and all the other great meals - historically a big population flowed north from the impoverished southern regions to Milan - and still do. Surely some of the good pizza cooks!
You should still go to Naples it is an astounding city in many ways not just the pizza and there are many great things in its region. PS to others who go - the duomo is a late gothic disappointment, very uncharacteristic of italian architecture… Cant hold a candle to the great gothic cathedrals of France. The single thing that made it appealing to us was the simple roman bath in the scavi below where St. Augustine was baptised a christian by St. Ambrose. The ancient churches of Milan are much more interesting.
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Originally, I was thinking we’d just grab some cicchetti and wine after checking into our hotel in Venice. But somewhere along the train ride from Milan, it hit me, it was Saturday. Maybe a reservation wouldn’t be the worst idea.
Since we couldn’t make voice calls with our eSIMs, I dashed off a quick email to our hotel. Lickety-split, we had a reservation at the Hard Rock Café. So yeah, the hard rock might seem like an odd choice but it’s fun to compare hard rock cafes in different countries. reservations turned out to be a smart move, the streets of Venice were packed and we noticed a steady stream of would-be customers turned away.
Our waiter suggested a house special aperitif which they called a Tintoretto consisting of Prosecco and pomegranate juice. I’m not one for sweet, frothy drinks but who can resist a Tintoretto in Venice? And wow, it was delicious, the pomegranate’s sweetness set off the dry Prosecco perfectly.
We kicked the food off with a fantastic grilled octopus appetizer. It reminded me of the “sushi octopus” from Tinos, a good neighborhood Greek spot on the UES, though Hard Rock Venice gets a bit more char on theirs.
Next, we split two dishes: their seabass (branzino) lasagna and tagliatelle with rabbit ragu and 40-month parmesan. Both were incredible, but the lasagna stole the show. We wrapped things up with a slice of their homemade torte with raspberry sauce.
For wine, we let the waiter take the lead, a good decision that we’ll probably be repeating for the rest of the trip.
overall, a fantastic meal, and who would’ve thought Hard Rock Venice served such refined dishes? Ok, if you’ve made it this far, I should probably fess up, the restaurant was actually Ai Assassini, tucked away in a cool little street called the Alley of the Assassins. They play vinyl jazz all night, service was great and dinner for two with two apertivos, three glasses of wine, and all that food worked out to about $110.
My first impression of Venice? Absolutely bowled over by its beauty, yet there’s also a lingering sadness. A city that was once a hub of finance, art, and discovery now feels largely given over to gelato stands, restaurants, and boutiques. Still, looking forward to getting up early and starting to explore the city!
best.
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you really had me going with the Hard Rock thing! - is that the approach of the @vinouspleasure I know?? Is it possible that Hard Rock has good food in Venice! Yo saved me before my brain exploded. so glad you started off with a good meal and I think the wine approach is the right one. The fish or seafood lasagna in venice is very good in my experience - Im assuming there is cheese in there - a very good choice. The sadness about the emptiness - yeah. Its nice to get out on the water and also to get into the areas that arent fully taken over by tourists - though that main inland alley between the Arsenal area and the Center used to be mainly local a local shopping area, and continuing on toward the Rialto, places to buy rubber boots, brooms and such!
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You had me going, too! I’m so glad Ai Assassini is still delivering. It’s been so long since I’ve been there and I still remember how kind the waiter was. One of the courtesy aperitif was a slice of bread topped with melty lardo. Just shut-my-eyes delicious and the first time I’d tried it. He noticed my reaction and the next thing you know, we had an entire platter topped with those crostini di lardi placed in the center of our table. We had tried the place because it was known for not focusing on seafood, which my partner did not like back then. And it was among the best meals we had on that week-long stay. Great report and photos…many thanks.
And beautiful comment on the lingering sadness you felt. Sometimes it feels as if so many once enchanting destinations are on that course…Venice the most obvious example but there are so many going that route nowadays…
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Tonight we saw Rigoletto followed by dinner at vini da gigio. The opera was wonderful, set in the intimate Fenice.
I don’t want to dwell too long on Vini da Gigio since I know it’s a forum favorite, but unfortunately, it just wasn’t for us.
The trouble started with the seating. It was snug. Intimate. The kind of place where you learn more about the people next to you than you ever wanted to know. In our case, that meant sitting about a foot from a German winemaker who had decided, right then and there, to conduct high-stakes business negotiations with our waiter. The goal? To convince the restaurant to buy his wine. The method? Volume and persistence. Since neither of them spoke English as a first language, they compensated by talking louder. And louder. And louder. Until it felt like we were in the middle of an experimental theater piece called Man Yells at Waiter, Waiter Yells Back.
When the winemaker wasn’t giving an impassioned speech about his own product, he was complaining about the wine he had ordered. Not good enough. Not complex enough. Not free enough. He kept pushing for a replacement. It was hard not to admire the sheer determination.
But ultimately, the food was the real disappointment. We started with a plate of mixed Venetian seafood appetizers, which my wife described, with great economy, as fishy, oily, squiggly bits. I liked some of it, but there was nothing on the plate I’d want to order again.
pasta with anchovy butter arrived next, and it was just fine. Finally, a whole branzino, impeccably fresh and simply prepared with salt and a little olive oil to let the fish shine. But as someone who catches and cooks fresh fish regularly, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t do myself.
In the end, we departed neither hungry nor entirely satisfied, but we did learn a lot about how to sell German wine to one’s waiter 
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I went years ago to Vini da Gigio, and you confirm my impressions. Sorry you had such a bad time there, but over the years I felt somewhat unsure as I read so many glowing responses to the restaurant that perhaps, despite misgivings, I should give it another chance. So, I do thank you for taking one for my team!
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You should have gone back to the Hard Rock 
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Such a bummer! Glad the opera was fun.
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theres that pretty girl in the white boots again.
it sounds like an experience to remember, unfortunately not in a great way - those appetizer plates can be really good but this one looks a bit lackluster. - the little grey shrimp - schie I think shouldhave been good, the long mantis shimp, it looks like maybe sole in saor (pickled with onions?) a little crab and some scallops? baccala alla veneziana (supposedly stockfish, not salt cod). I hope the polenta was warm not cold. I tend not to like the grilled polenta, the soft white is nicer. Sorry the recommendation did not pan out for you, and hope you order one of these appetizer platters again with better luck!
Here is a full appetizer portion of the sfogie in saor and the appetizer plate we got there in 2023
and for comparative purposes an appetizer plate we had out on Mazzorbo at Trattoria alla Maddalena
Hope tomorrows meal pleases you more!
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Jen, the sfogie in saor was the only thing we both liked, the polenta was room temp and had a weird oily aftertaste, the tiny shrimp with white polenta, which my wife called Venetian shrimp and grits was bland and unspiced, I was excited to try the large shrimp but again, no taste, perhaps we should have added olive oil? or salt?
anyhow, we decided to eat there based on the many recommendations found here on HO and the web, the food just wasn’t for us or maybe we ordered the wrong dishes. also, fwiw, we didn’t see one person < 60 in the room.
anyhow, things radically improved the next night, I’ll post during our train journey later today.
best,
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after our fishy squiggly bits experience, we decided to try cantina aziende agricole , another recommendation from the YouTube food tour guide who recommended ai assassini. It turned out to be a tiny gem on a canal, just four tables inside, four outside, a wine bar offering cicchetti, and two women in the kitchen cooking up a small but mighty menu.
When we arrived, all the tables were taken, so we grabbed a couple of Cicchetti, ordered two glasses of outrageously good Sangiovese, and settled at an outdoor table under a heat lamp to wait. About ten minutes later, we were seated inside, strategically positioned right next to the cicchetti display. 
If you have a moment, check out their beautiful selection by clicking the link above. It was outstanding!
For our main dishes, we shared two types of pasta: bigoli with duck ragu and pappardelle with wild boar. Both were perfect: rich, comforting, and exactly what we needed on a chilly night, especially paired with that fantastic wine. My wife took a recommendation from our server for her second glass, and wow, I wish I’d taken a photo of the bottle. Four glasses of wine, four Cicchetti and two pasta dishes were around $50.
And one final thought: If someone truly wanted to make America great again, they could start by pricing soft drinks the same as an Aperol Spritz!
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