<a target="_blank" href="http://www.arnolfo.com/">Arnolfo</a>

Via XX Settembre, 50-52

53034 Colle di Val d'Elsa, Siena, Italy

Tel. +39 0577-920 549

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BY IAN D’AGATA | OCTOBER 7, 2016&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Food:Red mullet, cucumber, fermented garlic, black tea (Triglia, cetriolo, aglio fermentato, tè nero)Lobster, potato, green onion, anise (Astice, patate, cipollotto, anice)Senatore Cappelli Spaghetti
alla Chitarra, tomato, small squid, and herring caviar [Spaghetti alla Chitarra (Senatore Cappelli), pomodoro, calamaretti,
caviale di aringa]Sole, red shrimp, sea asparagus, San Gimignano DOP
saffron (Sogliola, gambero rosso,
salicornia, zafferano DOP di San Gimignano)Lamb of Zeri (rack, leg), bell pepper, potato, rhubarb
(Agnello di Zeri, carrè, coscio,
peperoni, patate, rabarbaro)





























Pigeon (breast, thigh), raspberry, oyster (Piccione, petto, coscia, lamponi, ostrica)















The Wines:

<table>
 <tbody><tr>
 <td>
 2014 Capichera Vermentino Capichera
 </td>
 <td>
 92
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
 2014 Miani Bianco
 </td>
 <td>
 90+
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
 1990 Colle Picchioni Vigna del Vassallo
 </td>
 <td>
 94
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
 1988 Lungarotti Torgiano Rosso Riserva Vigna
 Monticchio
 </td>
 <td>
 94</td></tr></tbody></table><img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1475879430874-lobster+copy+2.jpg"> 















Lobster, potato, green onion, anise&nbsp; 



















Arnolfo, a two star Michelin establishment since 1999,
is one of Italy’s fifteen best restaurants and boasts a remarkable track record
of consistency. In fact, I cannot think, off the top of my head, of any place
in Italy that has had fewer culinary ups and downs than this one. It is a
testament to the professionalism and the extreme passion of the Trovato
brothers (Gaetano, the Chef, and Giovanni, the Maître) that Arnolfo is as close
to a sure bet in Italian fine dining as there is to be found. At thirty-five years and counting, Arnolfo is still at the top of its
game. My last meal there only confirmed that impression. <img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1475183249890-agnello+copy.jpg"> Lamb of Zeri&nbsp; 



















The dining room is small, but the large round
tables are set far apart. There is also a nice balcony where you may prefer to
sit in the summer and early fall, and from where you can gaze at the beauty of
the Tuscan countryside. The food is very carefully plated, in fact these are
some of the most elegantly and beautifully presented food compositions you’ll
encounter anywhere in Italy (even the amuse-bouches are choreographed); you
will be reminded of works by Mondrian (if only that artist had contemplated
also using curved lines, puddles, and squiggles). The red mullet and lobster
antipasti are to die for, expertly cooked and accompanied by logical
ingredients that help lift the aromas and flavors of the main player in the
dish (the red mullet and the lobster) without camouflaging them in any way. The
spaghetti are also exceptional,
perfectly cooked and magically infused with the flavors of the very intense
tomato sauce. To eat perfectly cooked pasta in Italy might sound like the least
one could hope or ask for, but in fact it’s not easy with the Senatore Cappelli
grain, which makes for fantastic pasta but one that is hard to cook just right
unless maximum care is taken. It’s a grain that was developed at the beginning
of the 20th century by the Italian geneticist Nazareno Strampelli&nbsp;at the Research Center for Cerealculture of Foggia in Puglia (Centro di Ricerca per la Cerealicoltura di Foggia).&nbsp;The new grain’s name was dedicated to
an Abruzzo nobleman, the Marquis Raffaele Cappelli(also a senator
of the Kingdom of Italy, hence the grain’s name), who in the last years of the
19th century had launched agricultural reform in Puglia and supported
Strampelli’s work by providing him with experimental plots of land,
laboratories and other resources. History lesson aside, the rest of Arnolfo’s dishes
on the night were almost as good as the three I started with; the lamb from
Zeri is especially noteworthy. The indigenous Zerasca breed of sheep lives only
in the countryside of towns such as Zeri, Mulazzo and Pontremoli in the area of
Massa Carrara in Tuscany, and is characterized by an especially tender and
perfumed meat.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1475183289979-piccione+copy.jpg"> 













Pigeon (breast, thigh), raspberry, oyster&nbsp; 



















I would be doing a disservice to wine lovers
everywhere if I didn’t mention Arnolfo’s exceptionally fairly priced wines on
the long, easy to read wine list. My evening meal was made that much better by some
older and by now un-findable vintages of Italian classics, and I must
complement the Trovato brothers for not trying to gouge their clients with
silly, inopportune markups. Do make sure you ask Giovanni about any favorites
you might have, for not all of the restaurant’s many wines are written up on
the already long wine list; so, for example, should you see a wine by a
producer you especially like, but you’d prefer to drink another wine from that same
producer, ask Giovanni to check and see if he might also have those lying down
in his cellar as well. Chances are high he will. I started off my meal with the
great 2014 Capichera Vermentino, an
explosively fresh and saline blend of pungent minerality and ripe orchard
fruit; it’s one of the best they have made in some time. I love just about
anything Enzo Pontoni makes at Miani, and though his Bianco is my least favorite
of his many outstanding whites, the 2014 Miani Bianco proved well balanced and
suave, if a little less concentrated than usual (not surprisingly, given the
cool, rainy year). I followed up with two absolutely stellar Italian reds I
won’t soon forget: the 1990 Colle
Picchioni Vigna del Vassallo and the 1988
Lungarotti Torgiano Rosso Riserva Vigna Monticchio. The former is one of
the best wines ever made in Lazio (though the 1982 and 1985 were even better),
a remarkably smooth, powerful but also very refined mainly Bordeaux blend that
is drinking beautifully and still loaded with spicy, ripe red and black fruit
aromas and flavors. The latter is a great Umbrian red that has weathered the
test of time well; a little more austere than the Vigna del Vassallo, it’s a
magnificent, mainly Sangiovese wine that ages extremely well in great vintages,
always imbued with lingering nuances of red and black cherry, flint, licorice
and underbrush. <img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1475183303637-vini+copy.jpg"> 

















Arnolfo di
Cambio, also known as&nbsp;Arnolfo di Lapo, was born in the very pretty medieval town of Colle di Val d'Elsa&nbsp;in either 1232 or 1240&nbsp;(the exact year of his death in
Florence is also unclear, occurring either in 1302&nbsp;or 1310) was a famous sculptor and architect. Many of his
works are visible in Florence and Rome (for example, noteworthy statues in the
latter’s city churches and cathedrals of Santa Maria Maggiore, San Paolo Fuori
le Mura, San Giovanni in Laterano, and Santa Cecilia in Trastevere). In his
native Colle Val d’Elsa, he designed two bridges, that of della Spugna and San
Marziale, but unfortunately neither has survived the ravages of time. No
matter: the memory of Arnolfo, the man, still lives on today thanks to his
talent, and the same can be said of Arnolfo, the restaurant, where similar
levels of talent and skill guarantee that lasting dining memories are made.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 

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