There is no such thing as "Italian cuisine"

This post was triggered by a conversation among friends: an indian and a french girl, an american guy and an italian nobleman (ahem...).
The focus of the discussion was: italian kitchen is boring, just pasta, aubergines and pizza.
After recovering from the sudden heart attack I decided to disclose the truth.
This post contains a lot of trivialities, but we know that the Truth is trivial.

Italian kitchen does not exist! This is the terrible, shocking truth.

What exists is a regional kitchen and in some cases even a local one, limited to the province.
Of course some dishes are considered as italian, like spaghetti and pizza, but these are exceptions and even recent ones.
Pizza for example spread itself all over the country and the in the world thanks to the emigrants from southern italy: until the sixties pizza in northern italy was practically unknown and pasta was not in the everyday menu.

This is the fact, something called "italian kitchen" is a fuzzy concept.
But what about the italian restaurants?! Italian restaurants abroad offer exactly the few dishes that are common to all the italian regions. Everywhere in italy you can order spaghetti or "cotoletta alla milanese" or pizza or grilled fish/meat, but this kind of dishes for the italians are part of the survival kit, ordered when going out is not a choice like a lunch break.
Usually italians don't go to the restaurant and order the same stuff they can cook at home, where is the point?
This is why I tend to scream when I see tourists taking "spaghetti al pomodoro" and "cotoletta alla milanese" while sitting in a good restaurant in sicily...

What is the italian kitchen then? Again, italian kitchen is regional.
In munich I have found a couple of tourist traps. The restaurants declared to be "cilentano" (Cilento is part of Campania) or umbrian and the menu listed the usual stuff: spaghetti bolognese, grilled fish and piccata lombarda, something that in lombardia (the region I come from) doesn't exist or in case we call it "scaloppine al limone". From an umbrian restaurant for example I expect dishes that can remind the bavarian kitchen, with lots of tasty (and salty) "salumi", roasted pork, pasta with special sausages and all sort of sweet stuff. None of this was in the menu and when I asked for "torta sul testo" the owner looked at me and clearly though "ufff...a trouble maker...". Excuse me?! An umbrian restaurant without "torta sul testo" is like an irish pub without guinnes!

I leave you with a list of very italian dishes, probably unknown to you and, sadly, to most of the italians who never left their region.
I hope to trigger your curiosity: la casoeula, il frico, il risotto alla milanese, la polenta taragna, i pizzoccheri, la bagna cauda, il caciucco, gli arrosticini, la gricia, la parmigiana di melanzane, pasta alla norcina, le orecchiette con le cime di rapa, le sarde a beccafico, gli spaghetti con la bottarga...<continue>

I love Italian cuisine, but it is difficult to find places here that do more than the standard stuff, without paying a fortune. I like la vecchia masseria. Even in Italy you have to avoid the tourist traps and just dig in. If you don't know what something is, try it - same as anywhere, really. One of the best meals I had in Italy was in Florence in an unassuming side-street place with two tables outside and scooters whizzing past.

When we were in Umbria (near Lago di Trasimeno) they called it 'torta al testo', though whether you want it 'from the' or 'on the', I don't suppose it matters much.

The whole notion of a national singular cuisine is a fuzzy concept.

too long, what exactly are you trying to say in 10 words or less?

Exactly. It's pretty much the same in every country!

This is why I'm always so harsh with cheap-restaurant owners: having something out of the standard doesn't mean it has to be expensive.
Having it good is another thing...you can't have everything, although I don't understand why not!


Here is another urban legend: "wherever you go in Italy you eat well". False. Not only there are tourist traps, but even italian traps.


Yes, it's the same. "Testo" is the special pan where the bread is cooked.

Italian regional cuisine is extremely varied, I agree, however people want pasta and pizza, so that's what they are given...

On slightly related note, one of my biggest pet peeves is when the fat is cut off of dry-cured ham - it's the best part!

I have the feeling that people want that because they just know that...otherwise...bother the restaurant owners!!!
After a "real" , uh, indian dinner I keep bothering indian waiters asking for a particular dish...

BTW, why do you think that bars in munich are serving Spritz since a couple of years

bobD, read the line in bold, that's enough.

I'd rather eat a pizza box than the pizza.

Well, I warned you that the post was full of trivialities

The point is...apply positive pressure. If I go to a so called french restaurant I ask the owner what does french mean. I know they hate me.

'There is no such thing as "Italian cuisine"'

I sooo wish this was true. Can you take that French trash as well.

just make sure you ask that AFTER you have already received your food...

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they eat.�

Pizza is crap. Italian pizza is crap, American pizza is crap, and I dare say pizza from Outer Mongolia is crap. I don't like pizza.

I salivate on the thought of my next trip to the Modena area and gnocco fritto, I crave breakfast in Prato nibbling on donzelle, or a midnight feast in Orvieto guzling prosciutto di norcia, or a light lunch of bianchetti in Marina di Massa, or a pollo ripieno alla trentina dinner in Merano. Fuck! I gotta go eat.

Bless the Lord! Sin walks in the light!

(The sin of not liking pizza will be forgiven if you appreciate bianchetti)

Bianchetti, deep fried in good olive oil, with a fresh lemon squeezed over the top = Good.

Sardines smeared on a dough base and shoved into an oven = McDonaldini's.

Me no like fast food.

And while we're at it. I'm a bit of a fan of high quality stravecchia. Nardelli's 'Brandy' is my favourite. I don't get drunk very often. It usually only occurs when I enter a certain grapparia in Bossano.

also think pizza is crap but like the fact that it's not buried in cheese here. american pizza is the worst.

In the Lazio region where my forefathers are from, there is a sauce that is to die for. A little salty with no meat, orangy color and if placed before me will be devoured nearly instantaneously.

Thank God for that. I thought I was the only person on the planet that thinks pizza tastes like cardboard smeared with warm catsick. Its kinda edible at a push, but fuck knows why anyone actually chooses the damn stuff.

Ironically I reckon you can't beat a decent bit of bread, cheese and tomatoes. Get those 3 things correct and you can poke yer caviar and smoked salmon.

Well... it's a bit like Scotland JE. Deep-fried Mars Bar ain't to my particular palate, but I'll lap up the cullen skink anyday. Bit like any country. I loves a bit of English crumpet too. Especially the posh variety. Could eat it all night.

What pizza are you talking about?!
If pizza is crap, it means it is not pizza. As it is said the original pizza is a special kind of dough, fresh tomato sauce and buffalo mozzarella, or fiordilatte, with cow milk, baked properly in an oven at the right temperature for the right time.
Full stop. Hard to make it crappy, but possible.

I get your point - International borders defining countries rarely take into account cuisine. Food in Nice is going to going to have alot more in common with northern italian dishes than it does with northern french dishes, yet pissaladiere is served up as "French" on the same menu as some buttery creamy dish from Brittany.

Interesting that you mention "la casoeula"* and "Testo" though - thats just words for cooking utensils. Casserole is another one, as is paella really, and "marmite" too - I put little quotes around that, because I'm talking about marmite as something like "marmite de poissons", and not evil black yeasty Sin goo.

I often find it hard to "classify" a dish though - am I cooking something French, Italian, Spanish? I'm probably using local German ingredients, but I am actually English. What the fuck am I cooking.

Wouldn't get too upset by people talking about Italian food though - look at the slop served internationally under the banner "chinese food". Happens everywhere.

*Has its roots in Spain BTW, Italy nicked it...

Of course I can start a religious war about this.
The roots of cassoeula are not known, although one of the many legends talkes about a spanish soldier who revealed the recipe to a young milanese girl.
Nowadays cassoeula reminds more of the alsatian Choucroute although the preparation (and the taste) is very different.

Of course I get upset about italian food, as i said is more of a religion than nourishment.
I am perfectly aware that this happens everywhere, for years I refused to believed that what they serve in the chinese restaurants is actually chinese and sometimes is actually food.
What upsets me is that serving the real stuff is not that difficult.

Most people don't know what the real stuff is, so are happy to pay for, and eat, what they're given. Or they really don't want the real stuff, and like it all done with a German (or British or whatever) flavour. Think Chicken Vindaloo or Sweet&Sour Pork Balls. The restaurants, being a business, have no incentive to change.

Some of the food which the Chinese actually eat, like thousand-year-old eggs, would make most foreigners cringe...

some of the food that the mainland chinese eat makes taiwanese and hong kongese cringe. A taiwanese business acquaintance of mine claims the mainland chinese lost the art of real chinese cooking during the great leap forward.

When my grandparents were in China at a special banquet held for them, the host kept putting the best bits on my Grandma's plate, such as eyeballs and chicken feet. Luckily, my Grandfather was more adventurous and snitched the delicacies off her plate and saved her.

We, the customers, are the incentive.
I agree that is difficult knowing what the real stuff is but...for example I live in munich, not far from the italian border and I know a lot of bavarians who go to italy and know what the real stuff is. Why don't they complain when they come back?! Why don't they ask for that delicious Pastizada de caval they had in Verona or the beautiful "canederli al formaggio" they devoured in Bozen?!

I know some restaurants in London where they serve the real stuff. I can certify the reality for some italian, french, spanish and chilean restaurants.
If it is possible in london why not in munich or wherever? I'm afraid that we have to complain more here...

Anybody who doesn't like Pizza hasn't had real Pizza.

Consumers win I'm afraid. The urban myth goes that chicken tikka masala was invented when some bloke ordered some sort of tandoor cooked chicken, and complained that it had no sauce.

A brilliantly talented chef called Nico Ladenis (famous for cooking things properly, and stating that the customer is rarely right, because the average customer does not know shit) tried to open a restuarant near Reading, and failed, because customers were just idiots, and wanted things done their way, not properly.


London is a rare exception where you can make a success of things by doing them properly. Move 30 miles west though, and you'll experience the same crap that Ladenis did. If you opened an italian restaurant in affluent Henley, you'd get clients that "know all about" Italian food, because they've read a Jamie Oliver book. You'd have to bow to customer preference, or go out of business probably.

We do have some very good restaurants in London (finally). As for "Why don't they complain when they come back?! " well there's your problem. Don't go back; that's how you get restaurants to change, not by going back, spending more money, and then asking, through a mouthful of carbonara, that they should change the menu ;)

As for Chinese food ... yeah, in my experience Taipei has some of the best food on the planet (well, based on the smallish sample of places on said planet that I've actually visited). I lived in Beijing for a while and they have some great food there too, but not as much variety.

I'd guess that, despite Munich not being far from Italy, those who apperciate proper Italian food are those rich enough to pop over the border regularly for holidays. Those that can't, haven't been, so don't know what they're missing. You probably suffer from being too close to Italy ;)

One of my favorite restaurants in munich closed down for this reason.


Definitely, from many points of view.

Ok, ok, you are right, all of you, I should not expect too much. After all leaving the country must have a price to pay.
The only thing I can do is give my 1/2 cent of contribution in this section , and keep complaining with italian food-mongers.

Omjoi whats the best Italian restaurant in Schwabing ?

My place: very cheap, very good, especially if I'm not the one cooking...

Seriously, suggesting a restaurant is not easy and for the reasons above I don't have much experience with italian restaurants in munich.

Nevertheless I can suggest the following restaurants in Schwabing:

Locanda Picolit : Expensive but good. No regional cuisine, but very creative.
Golden Twenties : Despite the name it's an italian restaurant, again expensive but worth it. The "Risotto al Taleggio" was a dream.
Pepe e Sale : not so expensive but very good and with some unusual dishes (for the bavarian taste).