Monti is a small global village between the
main train station and the colosseum, and from its labyrinth of small streets
and stairways you catch glimpses of the surrounding city like pictures in a
frame. The dome of Santa Maria Maggiore looms at the top of the via Panisperna,
where a curtain of ivy, trained onto the streetlight cable, hangs across the
street; the tops of two massive Corinthian columns fill the view at the end of
the via Baccina, and the once you reach them the vista opens out across the
Foro di Augusto a baroque dome and a Romanesque bell tower half a mile away. As
it descends from the via Nazionable, the via dei Serpenti, Monti’s main street,
perfectly frames the Colosseum – a beautiful effect after dark, when the
monument is illuminated.
Monti
is a small global village between the main train station and the colosseum, and
from its labyrinth of small streets and stairways you catch glimpses of the
surrounding city like pictures in a frame.
I first heard about Monti over a meal, of
course – this one a mission to check out II Margutta, one of the few purely
vegetarian venues in a city so carnivorous it proudly serves calf entrails and
goat brains, bits of anatomy shunned in other cultures. My guest, Elisabetta Povoledo,
is a correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times.
So she was eager to provide a sharp, if depressing, assessment of Italian
culture in the scandal – plagued reign of then prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi, who had populated both his government and his media properties with
bodacious babes and right-wing nostrums. Before he was forced to resign, he had
dismissed concerns about Italy’s economic health with the declaration: ‘the
restaurants are full’.
Asked about popular neighbourhoods,
Povoledo steered me to her friend Elizabeth Minchilli, a writer whose books
celebrate the glories of Italian life and who blogs about food and her two
homes-one in Moti and her other in Todi, a town in Umbria. I arranged another
meal.
Todi,
a town in Umbria
Monti gets a smattering of foreign visitors
who have wandered off-piste from the archaeological sites or been drawn by its
affordable small hotels and cosy restaurants. But they come in pairs, not large
groups. And barely dilute the impression of Monti as a calm and congenial
residential neighbourhood with both an old-world patina and a cutting-edge
vibe. The nexus of local street life is the small piazza about halfway along
the via dei Serpenti, where the fountain is a gathering place for mothers and
toddlers during the day and anchors a lively cocktail hour on weekend nights,
when the cafés overflow with young Romans. In the surrounding streets fashion
and home-furnishing boutiques stand beside the original artisans’ shops.
Although the district is increasingly chic, I was told the butcher’s shop
upholds its proletarian perdigree by dispensing the best cuts to people of the
left. (the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, a former Communist Party
leader, also live in Monti, and probably eats very well.)
The
nexus of local street life is the small piazza about halfway along the via dei
Serpenti
Monti has plenty of good restaurants,
including a high concentration of Indian, Thai, Japanese and Chinese options.
Minchilli directed us first to Urbana 47, which is noteworthy for its
‘locavore’ calues; it uses only ingredients produced in Lazio, the region
surrounding Rome. The menu, which lists the suppliers (including a Trappist
monastery), is inventive, short and tailored to the season. Pressed to take me
to her tru neighbourhood favourite, however, she chose the more traditional La
Taverna dei Fori Imperiali, where we were greeted as family and served the
world’s best caponata, with chunks of succulent aubergine the size of dominoes.
We also made impromptu visits along the street, stopping in to see someone’s
new puppy and to pick up some items from a local artist. It was relaxed and
intimate in a way that reminded me of Trastevere back when students could cadge
a meal for less than £2 and stout grandmothers with swollen ankles lowered a
basket to the street to do their shopping and exchange the latest gossip with
the vendors.
On a quick back to Italy a few months
later, I managed to dine – finally – at Al Moro. The experience was not my most
simpatico Italian meal. The mimeographed menu was endless, which made me
nervous, having only a few well-chosen things on offer, not all of them written
down. And the waiter didn’t seem inclined to help us navigate the more than 30
piatti del giorno (daily specials), 23 fish dishes and lists of contorni (side
dishes). Instead, we used the signposts of a dish prepared ‘al Moro’ and
confirmed that the house specialities were the better choices.
I
managed to dine – finally – at Al Moro. The experience was not my most
simpatico Italian meal.
It was only by chance that we got to sample
a rare, seasonal delicacy, notice of which had been squeezed onto the menu,
inexplicably, next to the veal tonnato rather than with the other funghi
dishes. Credit to Minchilli, a true aficionado of Italian produce, for teaching
me about ovoli: rare, egg-shaped mushrooms which have a short season in the
autumn. Sliced paper thin and sautéed, they have a subtle, buttery flavor and a
distinctive yellow color. I ordered a single serving for the table and it
elevated an evening of Italian standards to higher gastronomic plane. The ovoli
were exquisite, and chances are I’ll never eat them again.
Credit
to Minchilli, a true aficionado of Italian produce, for teaching me about
ovoli: rare, egg-shaped mushrooms which have a short season in the autumn.
Italians know their relationship with food
to be a dynamic, social adventure. But what I rememver about the breakthrough
scene in the film Eat Pray Love (which was meant to be a valentine to Italy’s
cuisine), when Julia Roberts shows she has learned to order a meal in Italian,
is that she sticks to the menu and uses the waiter as a messenger, not a
co-conspirator and guide. It shoed me she still had some way to go before she
fully understood the T-shirt slogan I saw on a little boy in Monti: life is too
short not to be Italian.
