One thing stands out on the menu at the Trattoria Due Stelle and I won’t be ordering it. ‘Horse tartar’. Sorry, but that’s just the way I am. If the alternatives were weasel and badger then I might consider horse, but luckily I’m in a very popular Brescian trattoria, full of long tables of locals indulging in all manner of Italian delights, so there are plenty of other options.
The speciality here, advertised in big letters over the door is Gnocco Fritto. It is written in temporary felt tip pen, as though it is only available today. I’m a sucker for local specialities – usually right up until I discover what they are made from. However Gnocco fritto sounds like fried gnocci and unhealthy though it may be it sounds worth trying. I order some and then try and order some wine.
‘Vino? Bordeaux? Toscano? asked the waitress.
‘Da qui?’ I asked. That threw her.
‘Locale?’ I tried again. That must have made more sense.
‘Franciacortia?’ she asked.
I nodded, she departed towards the kitchen and I unwrapped my red linen napkin with optimism.
It turns out Gnocco Fritto is a variant of the fried bread family. Triangles of dough are fried to create light and fluffy bread rolls with a crunchy fried exterior. They are very good and the serving was very generous. They are very much a I’ll-just-have-one-more type of food, and whilst only having one more, I managed to finish the lot.
The Trattoria due Stelle was a narrow room with a low ceiling, full of locals eating and chatting and ordering more wine. Italian hubbub rose from the tables and if there was ever a language that produces an attractive hubbub, that language is Italian. Pencil sketches covered the walls and there was a motorbike in the fireplace. A what in the fireplace? I looked twice, but there it was as bold as brass. A red classic motorbike leaning in the fireplace as though it belonged there. I guess they moved it if they wanted to light the fire.
I was brought a delightfully shaped glass – narrow from top to bottom with a bulge in the middle, like a supermodel who’s discovered pizza. The waitress filled it with grappa to the top of the bulge, before realising it was for the man at the table next to me and taking it away. I wasn’t too disappointed at this turn of events, Grappa being a drink I often think shouldn’t have been invented, so I instead sipped the local Franciacorta from Cadel Bosco. Long legs and a light woody aroma with a taste of dark cherries and candle-lit evenings.
I had ordered casoncelli alle erbette, as I had seen casconcelli on several menus around Brescia. ‘Tis a local dish, I said to myself, and so it must be tried. Casoncelli are a Lombardian version of the more famous ravioli. You might not have heard of casoncelli, but I guess you are not unfamiliar with ravioli. Where casconcelli appears to be different is that whilst ravioli contains a filling between two sheets of pasta, each Casoncello is formed by folding one piece of pasta around the filling.
I thought I had ordered sage, but the filling was spinach. That surprise when the dish appears is one of the joys of eating at foreign restaurants. Oh! you say as you peer at your plate, this means that! The taste really came from the sauce which was cheesy and olivey, as though the chef had grated most of a wheel of Parmesan into a top olive oil. The pasta was al dente and by the time I had finished I couldn’t eat any more. Except maybe the last gnocco fritto…
Trattoria due Stelle
Via S Faustino
Brescia
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