If you're the kind of cucina Italiana aficionado, like Luca Appino, who spurns anything inauthentic, you're likely already acquainted with the maverick restauranteur's eponymous "shop", or rather "Bottega" (level 2, The Terrace (Sukhumvit) 49, www.labottega.name / tel. 02 204 1731). After all, the awards-churning ristorante isn't a flavour of the month, but of a decade, having counter-intuitively thrived since opening just in time for the GFC in 2008.
But Global Financial Crisis be blowed, the only acronyms Luca, a vigorous man with the piercing gaze of a painter, lives by are those derived from Indicazione Geografica Protetta (protected geografical information) and Denominazione d'Origine Protetta (protected designation of origin).
Indeed, over 80% of anything you eat at LBdL is imported, and everything from 15 kinds of unimpeachable pastas to the awesome breads (especially the crunchy, oily, herby focaccia) is homemade, placing it in a small super league of authenticity in these environs. Luca, who previously started Enoteca and is spreading his vision to Vesper Bar, Il Fumo and two Pizza Massilias, even personally visits the suppliers. Key ingredients range Fassone Piedmontese beef, Bronte pistachios, Mazara Del Vallo red prawns, Accardo oil, and what Operation Manager Assistant Laura Burini nails as "super small-farm" Mulino Marino stone-ground organic flour.
Is it worth it? Each to their own but Bottega's perennial popularity and accolades eloquently testify to the deliciousness of the dishes that head chef of three years, Andrea Ortu, is currently conjuring.
We swung by for an impromptu small-portion tasting menu that appetizingly showcased both Luca's Torino values and Andrea's Sardinian virtuosity.
That beef first: diced in a tartare with olive oil, thyme, citrus and "garden flavours". Supremely succulent, the Fassone is favoured for its leanness, tenderness and bight. With all its marbling Wagyu is too fatty for this recipe but serves well on the grill such as Fiorentina-style Tomahawk.
Andrea's southern origins make trofie, short, twisted pasta, sautéed with fresh clams in white wine sauce, crowned with cured, salted bottarga (grey mullet) roe, a provocative signature.
Pasta no. 2 -- broad strips of pappardelle wound into cylinders, filled and buttressed with wild French boar bolognaise, topped with Toscano cheese and toasted almonds -- was equally delectable.
Alternating back to surf, Andrea got this Turbot recipe from his grandmother, then deconstructed and turbot-charged it to tease out the flavours separately. The previously Mediterranean-resident fish is baked and served with saffron-seafood sauce infused with piquant taggiasca olives and homemade sundried tomatoes, over boiled French granelle potatoes. Another delicious original classic.
Our dessert of crêpes brulée lemon curd, strawberry sauce, crumble mint and meringue exemplified how top notch cooking transforms the prosaic, here lemons and filo pastry, into something swoon-inducing.
Conducive to forgetting one's cares, the setting is perfectly complementary. Starbucks is the anchor tenant in this swish community mall but LBdL has prime position at the top of the stairs above. Its homely air-conditioned dining room, cellar and bar, hung with original large canvas modern art, enhances the scenery. Its definitively dolce vita, al fresco dark-wood deck, strewn with supple brown Italian leather sofas and more rustico wooden dining tables set with burnt orange leather-upholstered chairs, is most popular among aliens come the cool of evening (a retractable roof trumps impromptu downpours) and, together with a private dining wine room for 14, is the preferred venue for parties.
