In 2010 expect short menus and a piatto del giorno.
As John Dickie pointed out in his fascinating book, Delizia!, the four-course structure that we have come to accept as the classic Italian meal – antipasto, primo piatto (pasta or rice), secondo piatto (meat or fish), dolce (pudding) – is of relatively recent 1930s origin.
The secondo piatto is slivers of beef, which we stuff with breadcrumbs, capers and cheese then deep-fry in olive oil.
No, if you want to eat pasta and meatballs, then bake small ones into a cheesy, oozing ovenproof dish of penne or, as the Romans do, serve the pasta with the cooking sauce first and then meatballs in more of that sauce as il secondo piatto.
The piatto giardinetto arrived: a platter of salami and cheese, courtesy of the animals bleating out back.
No danger of that with Annie's narrative; local personalities leap off the page, invariably cooking, eating and discussing the digestion, usually ticking the girls off for drinking too much coffee before lunch, eating food in the wrong order (surely everybody everywhere must eat antipasto, primo piatto and secondo?), chopping and dressing salads incorrectly.
For appetizers one night we decided on the piatto misto, an antipasto of cured meats and cheeses; the salad of the day, with oranges and black olives; and veal liver crostini.
The scorpion fish was cooked with a short tubular pasta called tubettoni, sauced with small tomatoes and served as an extraordinary piatto unico (pasta and main dish together) of few but pronounced flavors.
At the bar, you'll see a chic fashion crowd wearing Prada and Gucci, but also rough and ready gondoliers who come here at noon for the "piatto del giorno" - anything from spaghetti with pomodoro or roast pork - priced at €10.
Her mother is the author of the cookbooks "Piatto Unico: When One Course Makes a Real Italian Meal" and "Seafood alla Siciliana".
Diverse local favorites include Ricardo Ocean Grill; Harley's Smokeshack; Creole; and Piatto D'Oro, one of whose owners is a former Roman paparazzo.
