Celanto a settembre, Milan - a great little restaurant

February 29, 2008 · Filed Under Italian Food · Comment

We went out this evening with some friends, and they took us to an interesting restaurant which, it has to be said, is a little out on a limb. This is something of a shame because the place has a nice relaxed atmosphere, and more importantly, great food and wine. Our friends had already been there a couple of times, and on both previous occasions, the restaurant had been virtually empty. What a great shame.

This restaurant, which is modern in style and attractively decorated in white, as you will see from the photos on the site, is called ‘Celanto a settembre‘ and is located about 10 minutes by car from Piazza Loretto in Via Teodosio, 102, Milan. There is a map here - click on ‘Dove Siamo’. For some reason, I cannot see the photos when I access the site via Firefox, whereas by using IE7, I can see them in all their glory…

Although the food served in the Celanto a settembre is based on Italian cuisine, it is not traditional Italian cooking, but it is this touch of originality which made it so fascinating for me, plus the fact that the food was excellent, and the standard of presentation of the dishes being very high indeed. The service was good too, but seeing as we were almost the only people in the place, this was to be expected.

Now to the good part. After starting off with a couple of glasses of a very nice Portuguese white, I ordered a ‘Gelato di parmigiano con pere e uva’, which was parmesan ice cream (really!) with pear and grapes, and it was very good. My other half, Cristina, and friend, Sergio, had ‘Timballo di spada con crema di melanzane’ - a sort of mini-flan made with swordfish and served with cream of aubergine, again very tasty. Giorgia, our other friend, opted for the ‘Timballo di carciofi pecorino e bottarga’, which again was a type of flan, only this time with artichoke, pecorino cheese, and ‘bottarga’, which was thin slices of what I think is smoked tuna fish. It too tasted as good as it looked.

The starter was followed by a first course of Spaghetti with prawns, squid, and clams, served with dwarf tomatoes and spinach shoots, which Giorgia went for. My other half ordered Gnocchi stuffed with baccala, again with dwarf tomatoes and clams. The presentation was lovely and the taste did not disappoint either.

The guys, Sergio and myself, instead chose a main course of the intriguing squid stuffed with sea bass and artichoke, all on a bed of stir fried artichoke and served with scampi. Wonderful. The first and main courses where served together, so no waiting around while someone finishes the first course before the main course is served.

For pudding my other half went for the ‘Crema Catalana’, which is an oven cooked cream dish, whereas Giorgia got the hot chocolate tart which came with a pineapple and rosemary sauce. Instead I chose a more traditional chocolate mousse with strawberry sauce. The desserts where superb too.

Wine? Oddly enough we went for a red with all the fish, and the owner recommended a bottle of wine from the Alto Adige (Trento) area, and it was an excellent, quite light, red, a 2002 Sass Roà, Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact one of the other attractions of this restaurant is the very extensive selection of wines on offer. Over 400 of them in fact!

The price of all this goodness? Just over 200 Euros (about £30 a head) for the four of us, however we did have a bottle and a half of wine and the red we went for was not the cheapest the house had to offer.

The Celanto a settembre is open at lunchtimes and stays open until midnight during the week, although it is closed on Saturday lunchtimes and all day Sunday. They do, however, accept orders for private parties on Saturday lunchtimes and on Sundays at lunch and dinner time, if requested. I don’t know if English or other languages are spoken, but I’m going to ask them for some photos, so I’ll update this post when I find out.

Would I recommend this place? 100% yes. The food is fabulous and the menu is highly original. Everything is prepared by the owner, Carlo. It’s just a slight shame it is a little off the beaten track, although a tram does pass right in front of it. But, I think it is well worth, as is often the case, moving off the beaten track to check it out.

Good food, good wine and good company, which all added up to a lovely evening. What more can you ask?

Tags: Celento a settembre, Cheese, eat, evening, good, good wine, interest, interesting, Italia, Italian, Italian food and wine, Italian Wine, Italy, lovely, Milan, Milano, nice, order, Parmesan, restaurant, service, tomato, tomatoes, wonderful

The ways of the sausage

October 22, 2007 · Filed Under Italian Food, Life in Italy · 3 Comments

Well, I’ve got sausages on my mind at the moment owing to all my sausagey exploits. And I’ve been thinking how the good old British banger could be successfully mated to Italian cuisine. Italians have quite varied tastes in food, but on the whole tend to prefer subtly flavoured dishes, so I’m not sure how they might react to the taste explosion that an English sausage may cause. However, Italians are not adverse to strong flavours, indeed there is good old Gorgonzola and then there are the Barolo laced wild boar and venison game dishes that go down well. Down south chilli is very common and the southerners quite like something that is a bit on the spicy side. However, overly spicy food is not popular in Milan though, if you go for and Indian meal here, the spiciness will not blow your socks off. At least not in my experience, and this is despite having told Indian chefs to spice things up to the maximum.

Anyway, assuming that English sausages manage to get the Italian thumbs up and they are not overcome by the spices, what can they eat them with? Perhaps it would be better to ask how the mythical British banger can be cooked. They can, of course, be fried and thus raise cholesterol levels to frightening levels, but this would not be appreciated by Italians, who would consider the results as being too ‘heavy’, not to mention being worried about the cholesterol. Possibly the best way to cook them would be either under the grill or on the griddle. Cooking things on the griddle is common here, and is really a sort of indoor version of the ‘grigliata’ or barbecue.

The other way in which sausages are prepared is to oven cook them with chunks of potato. My other half does this and it makes for a nice hearty dish. Aside from potatoes, Italians tend to eat sausages with polenta and this I think would make just about the perfect accompaniment to English bangers, although the subject sausages are generally broken into little pieces and cooked in a tomato sauce. I suppose the same could be done with English bangers, but it would be better to put the polenta on a plate and then place the sausages next to it, maybe adding a few cooked tomatoes. This would make for an an interesting winter dish which would also go down rather well with visiting Brits and one or two other nationalities. I shall be trying this combination out myself, and I’m looking forward to it.

In the UK, sausages and mashed potato are quite common, and the same thing could be eaten here, only the mash would be replaced by the almost sauce like purè. Still, it would make for a good dish and English people would be quite happy if the plate was filled with a few spoonfuls of good old baked beans too - which, incidentally, I know where to get. Well, this place had Heinz baked beans the last time I was there.

And finally, other things like sausages and chips, sausage sandwiches, and even sausage pizza toppings would probably go down quite well. And finally, cold sausages could be impaled onto cocktail sticks and served up at dinner parties and the like in order to create that sophisticated Anglo-Saxon touch.

I’m sure others could come up with more combinations and even a few recipes that would benefit from sausages and at the same time create a fusion between English and Italian food. Time will tell, and I plan on holding a sausage tasting as soon as the first British bangers come off the Italian production line.

Interesting times ahead. I shall go banging on about this succulent subject for some time to come, I’m afraid.

Tags: bangers, chips, eat, English, English sausages, good, interesting, Italia, Italian, Italian Food, Italian food, Italians, mashed potato, Milan, nice, order, People, pizza, polenta, product, pure, sausage sandwiches, tomato, tomatoes, try