Leghorn
An Englishman who knows his Leghorn thoroughly, writes thus:—
The restaurant of the Albergo Giappone is one of the most famous eating-houses in Tuscany. The kitchen is not merely Italian, it is wholly Tuscan, and the Tuscan kitchen in skilful hands appears to content both the gourmet and the gourmand. Affairs once brought a distinguished English gourmet on a brief visit to Leghorn, and accident (for its fame had not preceded him) took him to the Giappone. Instead of staying three days, he stayed three weeks, so that he might ring all the changes of that wonderful menu, and he has since publicly declared that the kitchen of the Giappone is one of the finest in Europe. The English visitor to Leghorn is a rarity, but all famous Italians have at some time or other eaten at the Giappone—Crispi, Zanardelli, Cavallotti, Benedetto Brin, Puccini, Mascagni, to mention only a few among many. The proprietor is the Cav. Pasquale Cianfanelli, known even on the London market for the excellence of his Tuscan wines.
The full Tuscan dinner does not follow in the order of fish, entrée, roast, pièce de résistance, and game, but of boiled (lesso), fried (fritto), stewed (umido) and roast (arrosto). The boiled may be beef; the fried, sweetbread; the stewed, fish; the roast, pigeon; but this order is always maintained, and the stranger's disappointment at there being no fish after the soup has only been equalled by his astonishment when it turns up in the fourth place. It is for this reason that the Tuscan bill of fare proves such a puzzle to the stranger with only a smattering of the language, for it is not made out under the headings of fish, entrées, joint, etc., but of lessi, fritti, umidi, and arrosti; and fish, for instance, will be found under all four headings. Famous dishes at the Giappone are Spaghetti a sugo di carne (gravy sauce), Risotto with white truffles, Arselle (a small shell-fish) alla Marinara, Triglie (red mullet) alla Livornese, Fritto misto (mixed fry), Controfiletto con Maccheroni, etc. The diner cannot do better than keep to the ordinary vino da pasto, and end with the delicious caffè espresso and a Val d'Ema (Tuscan Chartreuse), green or yellow. The best Tuscan mineral water is the Acqua Litiosa di S. Marco (from the province of Grosseto), and it deserves more than a merely local fame. If the traveller's flask is not already empty, let him try some of its contents with this water, and he will have a pleasant surprise.
Another excellent restaurant in Leghorn is that attached to the Hôtel d'Angleterre-Campari, owned by Signori De-Stefani and Clerici, the latter of whom was for a time in London, at the Albergo d'Italia. The cuisine is North Italian and French, and the traveller not thoroughly converted to the Tuscan table will find himself extremely well treated at the Hôtel Campari.
Rome
A man who loved strange experiments in eating, once asked me in Rome to dine with him at a very cheap inn outside one of the gates, and he explained how the dinner was arranged. He had found a hostel which did not provide food, but if you bought a lamb from a shepherd outside the gate, so as to save the octroi, you could have it cooked in a great pot, a certain amount being charged for the cooking; and you bought your wine, as a matter of course, at the inn. The carters and herds were, he told me, the people who partook of this repast, and every man ate his own lamb, leaving little but the bones. I did not go to that inn. That place of refreshment was at one end of the social ladder, the Grand and Quirinale are at the other. Set a man down in the restaurant of the Grand, or the Winter Garden of the Quirinale, and there will be nothing to give him a hint as to whether he is in London, or Paris, or Rome. He will eat an excellent dinner—French in all respects—and will be waited on by civil waiters, whom he knows to be foreigners, but who will answer him in English whatever language he addresses them in. At either restaurant an excellent dinner of ceremony can be given. The last time that I stayed at the Grand, I ate the table-d'hôte dinner on several occasions and found it good. The Roma in the Corso, and the Colonna in the Piazza Colonna, are the typical city restaurants; but they have a leaning towards the French cuisine. To eat the food of Rome, try La Venete in the Via Campo Marzio, which has a garden; or, more distinctive still, the Tre Re, hard by the Pantheon, where you must talk Italian, or else make signs.
Bucci, in the Piazza della Coppelle, is the Scott's or Driver's of Rome, and you can dine or lunch there off shell-fish soup, and the fish which comes from Anzio and the other fishing villages of the coast.
There is a curious restaurant close by the station, Vagliani is, I fancy, the owner, where artichokes are the staple fare, and where the decorations are in keeping with the food. You will find the foreign colony of art students—Danes, Norwegians, Germans—in the restaurants of the Via delle Crace, Coradetti, where the food is well cooked but served without any unnecessary luxury, being perhaps the best eating-house; but the real haunt of the artist in Rome is, at the present time, the Trattoria Fiorella in the Via delle Colonelli. Only do not go and stare at him while he is taking his meals, for if you do, he will go elsewhere to another trattoria, the position of which he will keep a dead secret. Of course there are Roman dishes without number, and these are some of the best known of them:—
The Zuppa di Pesce is a Bouillabaisse without any saffron. The fish and shell-fish (John Dory, red mullet, cuttle-fish, lobster, whiting, muraena, and mussels) which compose it are served on toast. The Fritto di Calamaretti is a fry of cuttle-fish in oil. Cinghiale in agro dolce is wild boar cooked in a sauce of chocolate, sugar, plums, pinolis, red currant, and vinegar. A bacchio e Capretto alla Cacciatora is very young lamb and sucking-goat cut into small pieces, and cooked in a sauce to which anchovies and chillies give the dominant taste. Pollo en padella are spring chickens cut up and fried with tomatoes, large sweet chillies, and white wine. Pasticcio di Maccheroni is an excellent macaroni pie, and Gnocchi di Patele are little knobs of paste boiled like macaroni. Broccoli, green peas cooked with butter and ham, and, above all, the Roman artichoke stewed in oil—which is to be obtained at its best in the old Jewish eating-houses of the Ghetto—are the vegetables of Rome. A very small ham is one of the local delicacies. Gnocchi di latte are custards in layers, each of which is seasoned with either sugar or butter, or cinnamon or Parmesan cheese; and Zuppa Inglese is a rich cake soused with liqueurs and vanilla cream, covered with meringue and baked. Uova di Bufola is a little ball of cheese made from buffalo's milk. The best kind, Abota is kept in wrappings of fresh myrtle leaves. Marino (red) and Frascati (white) are two of the best local wines. Orvietto has a faint remembrance of the champagne taste. Monte Fiascone is a dessert wine.