Many Italian wineries proudly name their wines after the towns around which their vineyards are spread —Barolo, Brunello di Montalcino, Fiano di Avellino and the lovely small city of Frascati, less than an hour south of Rome (if the autostrada is not jammed up) and within the province of Lazio. The wine named Frascati itself has not, until recently, been highly regarded aside from being a good white thirst quencher, although it was supposedly a favorite of the ancient Romans and the popes for whom it was readily available.

         The grapes used are Malvasia di Candia, Malvasia del Lazio, Grecchetto, Bombino Bianco and Trebbiano, none distinguished on its own. While Frascati has had a DOC appellation as of 1966, the upgrading in 2011 to DOCG—a government guarantee of high quality—is another example of the ranking’s  questionable dependability. Still, as is now true of all Italian wine regions, modernization, innovation and investment have improved the wine measurably among s few producers. The best labels to look for include Pallavicini, Conte Zandotti and Le Quinte.

         The city of Frascati is not on the usual tourist route, so it is quieter than Roman and a good walking city whose center is closed to vehicular traffic. It was for centuries a papal protectorate and frequently sacked by northern invaders, and in 1809 annexed by Napoleon to France. In 1837 Frascati, away in the hills, was the only nearby city that would accept plague-ridden Romans.  In 1943 half of Frascati’s buildings were destroyed by Allied bombings, but today the city is well worth visiting, not least for its ten surrounding villas like Aldobrandini, Parisi and Mondragone.

         My wife and I stayed at one, Villa Tuscolana (Via Tuscolana 1500), up a winding mountainside road  about three miles from town (right). Built in 1578 by Renaissance architect Luigi Vanvitelli  for the Jesuit Order on the ruins of a villa once owned by the Roman orator Cicero, it was long  a residence to Queen Maria Cristina of Bourbon and King Victor Emanuel II.  The  subsequent owner, Elisabetta Aldobrandi Lancellotti, connected Tuscolana via tunnels to her two other villas, Villa Aldobrandi and Villa Lancellotti.

        After World War II the building was restored by the Salesian order that has become a hotel done in 19^th century décor and suites, and it serves as a very popular wedding and events space. While we were there the hallways ran riot with scampering fashion models with their hair still in curlers.

The rooms are not particularly opulent but definitely evocative, and for the €114 euros we paid for the night, quite remarkable. The personnel at the front desk can run hot or cold, depending on the individual’s mood.

         In town the main square’s principal site is the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle, completed in 1598 with a fine façade but whose inside has a somber classical formality with none of the effusions of the Italian baroque. The most splendid edifice in Frascati is the vast Bishop’s Palace with its three towers, flanked by Santa Maria in Vivario.

         Since Frascati is in the region of Rome, the food is quite similar, and we ate at two different kinds of restaurants, one, the well-known Cacciani (Villa Diaz 13), spread over two floors with a large terrace overlooking the rolling hills that lead to Rome (right). The wine list is strong, with emphasis on the wines of Lazio, though no vintages are given.

         Cacciani’s been here a long time—since 1922­­­­— so they post the dates when specific dishes were introduced to the menu. The Cacciani family still runs the place with deft cordiality.

Along with some warm focaccia, my wife and I began with velvety eggplant ravioli (€14.50) and fettuccine with the new season’s funghi porcini (€16 ), then for our main course abbacchio, the very tender, exceptionally juicy baby lamb fed on the mint of the Roman hills (€22), with a side of bitter-salty stewed chicory and a bottle of Gabrielle Magno Frascati (€25 ).

That evening we went downscale to a wonderful, no-frills trattoria named Cantina Bucciarelli (Via Regina Margherita 27) . We came in out of the rain and it seemed everyone in the place was very happy when we arrived, for the conviviality is palpable, and, despite a full house, it was not in the least boisterous. The front room is glassed in and the pelting rain and outside light added to the coziness inside.

There is blackboard menu of specialties, from which we chose rigatoni alla carbonara (€12), rich with guanciale bacon and whisked eggs (above, left). Porchetta di Bernabi (€6) was well-fatted pig with its crisp skin as a  bonus.  Alessi di manzo (€10) was long simmered shredded beef with vegetables flavors cooked in, and pollo con pepperoni ( €15) was a generous plate of stewed chicken with peppers,, onions and tomatoes.

By the time we finished, the rain had stopped, we rose from our table and everyone around us said, “Ciao!” and “Buona  notte!” We felt right at home and sorry to leave the party.   

        

 

 

❖❖❖

 

GIANFRANCO SORRENTINO
HAS PASSED AWAY
By John Mariani

       Gianfranco was every inch the grand seigneur but without the pretense. He had the look of a gentle giant (though he was not tall), his face always shadowed with a three-day's growth of beard, his hair swept back but in disarray, the collar of his shirts always askew, his necktie out of kilter. His formidable rich voice voice always carried the gaiety of a comic opera basso. He would greet you. stick his chin out, frown, then break not a wide smile of welcome and played the genteel host to perfection. The world of la cucina Italiana is much the less in the US for his passing.

     He leaves behind his wife and partner Paola, and his two children, Sofia and Edoardo.

212-510-7714

By John Mariani

 

         “Grand” is certainly the appropriate word to describe the size and scope of La Grande Boucherie in midtown Manhattan. The only restaurant of this size in Paris that comes close might be La Coupole. Both have about 400 seats.

         Many of those seats are outside in the building’s arched atrium, set with tall potted palms. Inside is a splendid long bar and beyond that a two-tiered dining hall that, with its art nouveau appointments, would fit right in with the brasseries on Montparnasse like Le Dôme and La Rotonde, complete with maroon banquettes and brass railings, tile floors and curved wood. It’s all quite impressive. But it is also extremely loud: I clocked 90 decibels on my iPhone app––the equivalent of a jack hammer in your midst. People yell to be heard, and even on the mezzanine level we couldn’t hear each other speak, thanks to a band of four louts down below who must have thought they were ringside at a prize fight. Piped-in music only adds to the noise.

         The antidote to that cacophony is to sit in the peaceful al fresco-like tables in the atrium so that you can enjoy both the good bistro fare and the joy of conversation. Or perhaps come at five PM or after 9:30 when things simmer down.

         That said, one can have a fine meal here, heavily dependent on French classics, along with a slew of grass-fed beef items.  They deliver good French bread and butter, and the wine list is far more extensive than bistros ever are, dozens of pages in every category, and the Aloxe-Corton Domaine Francoise Jeanniard 2018 at $150 is a reasonable price for this very fine bottling.

     The white crock of rich lobster bisque ($25) set a good balance of creaminess and true lobster flavor, chuck full of lobster meat, while the mesclun salad with croquettes of chèvre ($24) paid proper homage to this bistro classic.  Abundant mussels with a mustardy Dijonnaise bath ($34) was a hearty mélange  of complex Mediterranean flavors. Of the appetizers only the mousse of foie gras was disappointing for the size of  what was little more than a large thimble of the liver at $32.

         Bistros define their honest goodness with steak frites ($54) and La Grande Boucherie’s earns its stripes. It comes as ten ounces of grass-fed as it would be in France) sirloin with a dollop of herb butter and very good pommes frites. (Matter of fact, good pommes frites have become ubiquitous in New York restaurants.)

      The lamb chops might be worth $63 had they been from an American farm rather than New Zealand, and while I would have liked to see the coq au vin ($42) served in a crock, it was nevertheless well rendered, cooked for a long time in red wine so that the meat itself darkens to a deep maroon suffused with carrots and vegetables that went into the stock, and the portion is generous.

         So, too, that ideal cold weather dish cassoulet Toulouse ($46) will feed at least two, and while it contained duck confit (whose fat had not been well rendered) and tender white beans, it did not contain any garlic sausage or pork, which is the definition of the Toulouse style, nor was there a crisp crust on top.

         For dessert I never refuse profiteroles ($18) and these were lavish and delectable, from the puff pastry to the ice cream and chocolate sauce. But why would a chef put some kind of peanut butter sauce into a Paris-Brest cake ($18) that demands almond praline? Then I noticed the menu says “comme un Paris-Brest”­­­­—like a Paris-Brest—but the substitution was not a success. A bowl of madeleine cookies were dry and some tasted herbal.

         The service staff at La Grande Boucherie is quick on its feet at the beginning of the evening but, as at far too many restaurants, by nine o’clock they seem to drift away somewhere and, in our case, took fifteen minutes to track anyone  down.

         If you opt for the best dishes at La Grande Boucherie you’ll have a fine meal fairly authentic to Parisian tradition. You may also have the sense that, owing to its size, there is something of a conveyor belt attitude in the kitchen. But if you sit in the atrium, sip a cocktail or glass of Champagne and enjoy your friends over a delicious bowl of soup, perfect steak frites and share the coq au vin and profiteroles you will leave satisfied.    

 

Open daily from 8 AM till midnight.

 

 

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

 

          The Americans left the office as a damp night fell over the city.

         “Well, I guess we have to believe him about being out of town,” said David, “and we sure don’t have the resources to knock on every doctor’s door who knows how to use a scalpel.”

         “Same goes for the butchers. It would take several people days to go over Liddy’s parish logs and match the names of boys in their thirties and forties who grew up to be butchers.”

         “It’s a long shot anyway. I don’t think you have to be a doctor or a butcher to lop someone’s organs off.”

         Katie and David had become accustomed to walking and getting to know the streets of Dublin.

         “It’s a wonderful walking city,” said Katie, “and it seems to be getting better all the time.

         “The Celtic Tiger is obviously roaring,” said David, referring to the economic boom that Ireland and particularly Dublin had been undergoing since the mid-1990s.

         They were passing through Temple Bar, which had become the city’s new arts district, turning at Cope Street, which was dark and quiet. Only a single figure stood towards the end of the block, seeming to be talking on his phone. David said, “Take my arm and stay on this side of me, away from the building.”

         When they were about ten feet away, the dark figure turned slightly and asked, “”Scuse me, mate, gotta light?”

         David spat a quick “No” and kept walking, when suddenly the man bolted at Katie, tearing her from David’s arm and drawing a switchblade knife next to her right eye. Katie and David couldn’t be sure, nut he looked to be the same height and weight as the man in the alley who’d threatened them.

         “Easy, Yank,” said the man, his cap down over his forehead.

         David looked for an opening but couldn’t risk the knife cutting Katie.

         “You always like to rough up women?” he said.

         “I told you the other night, no one would get hurt if you left Dublin. But you didn’t, did you? Well, then, maybe sendin’ this pretty American girl home with a memento on her face to remind her why she came to town will make you think about leavin’ soon as possible.”

         Katie’s cheek showed a slight indentation from the point of the knife, but the man had not drawn blood.

         “All right,” said David, “we’ll leave tomorrow. Just leave the woman alone. You cut her and I’ll rip your fuckin’ head off.”

         “Oh, you have a knife too, mate? Itchin’ for a knife fight in an alleyway? If I cut her, I know you’ll just rush over to her and make sure she’s all right, take her straight to the hospital. Then maybe you really will leave.”

         At that, Katie jammed her shoe heel sharply into the man’s instep and butted him backwards, sending him crashing to the ground. David leapt at the man and crunched his knee hard onto his chest, grabbing his wrist with the knife in it and smashing him in the face with his right fist. The man tried to struggle but David hit him again and again till the man dropped the knife against the pavement.

         “Get the knife, Katie!” David shouted, then proceeded to pin the man on his chest. From his jacket David took out a pair of handcuffs and clicked them on the man, hitting his forehead to the ground.

         “Stay down or I’ll fuckin’ kill you! Katie, call the cops.”

         David turned the man over and said, “Who the hell are you and who sent you?”

         The man spit in David’s face.

         “You’re the creep who carved up those priests, aren’t you? Did you use that switchblade on them, too?”

         The man’s mouth was very bloody but he again spat in David’s face.

         David took of his scarf and stuffed it in the man’s mouth as forcefully  as he could.

         “You okay, Katie?”

         “I think so,” she said, feeling the side of her face. “I don’t think he broke the skin.”

         David looked closely. “He didn’t, but he came damn close. Where the hell did you learn to fight back like that, Katie?”

         “After the last few times somebody tried to kill us I thought it a good idea to take a defensive fighting course. And where the hell did you get those handcuffs?”       

         “At that sex shop the other night.”

         “For Play? That’s why you went in there?”

         “Hey, where else can you buy handcuffs at ten o’clock at night in Dublin? I thought I might need them after the last time we met this guy.”

         “And you think this is the guy who attacked the priests?”

         “I don’t really know. But he used a knife. Seems a little too coincidental.”

         “But I thought we were going on the supposition that this guy was a goon for the priests or the Church.”

         “Maybe he is, but “You know what it seems like?”

         “What?” asked Katie.

         “Remember in From Russia with Love, when Bond is cornered in the Orient Express train car and suddenly realizes who his captor is really working for?”

         “I forget,” said Katie. “Connery was Bond and Robert Shaw was the bad guy. That I remember.”

         “Right, and Bond says”—David tried to do his best Sean Connery voice—“‘Of course! SPECTRE! This wasn’t a Russian show at all!’”

         “Right! SMERSH was the Russian spy agency and SPECTRE an international crime syndicate!”

         “Yeah, and then Bond fights and kills the guy.”

         “Vicious fight,” said Katie.

         “It was pretty realistic for a movie fight.”

         Katie and David heard the distinctive, two-note wailing of police sirens nearby and within seconds three Garda squad cars screeched to s stop, two at one end of Cope Street, a third at the other. Moments later an ambulance arrived.

         Out of the first car stepped Michael Horan and Tom Scanlon. Two other officers picked up the attacker, who seemed unable to walk on the ankle Katie had crushed. Another cop put the switchblade in a plastic bag.

         “You two all right?” said Horan.

         “We’re fine,” said David. “Lost a good scarf. He doesn’t look too good,” pointing to the suspect who was being put into the police car.

         “Well, I want you both to go to the hospital anyway.”

         “Suit yourself.”

         “So what happened?”

         David went into his NYPD mode, strictly by the book, calling the man who just tried to disfigure Katie as “the gentleman” and “the perpetrator.” Scanlon was copying everything down and asked, “You been carryin’ around handcuffs while you’ve been here?”

         “Came in handy, didn’t they, since I can’t carry a firearm.”

         “Okay,” said Horan, “after they release you from the hospital, can you come in to make a formal statement first thing tomorrow morning?”

         David and Katie merely nodded.

         “So you think this may be the guy who attacked the priests?” asked David.

         “’Tis a good possibility. Won’t know for a while, will we?   I just to God there are no more attacks.”

         Which David interpreted as meaning it was a win for the Garda and a reason not to go further with an investigation.

         The ambulance attendees helped the Americans into the back of the vehicle and drove to Mercer Medical Center (left) on nearby Stephen Street.  While waiting to be checked out by a doctor, Katie and American were glad to see Max Finger come through the Emergency Room doors.

         “So, you’re okay?” he asked.

         “I broke a heel,” said Katie, “but we’re fine.”

         David then proudly told Finger how Katie had shoved the man to the pavement and maybe even broke his ankle in the process.

         “We could use you on the Garda’s women’s division. So what happened this time?”

         David and Katie went over the details of the attack again, then asked Finger what he thought would happen next.

         “Horan and Scanlon will grill the man and find out who he is and try to pin the attacks on the priests on him.”

         “You mean they’ll use force on the guy?” asked Katie.

         Finger looked grimly at her, then at David, and said, “We’re a little bit more civilized than that now, Katie. I don’t know if they’re using rubber hoses at NYPD, but over here they might start reading him the 900 pages of Finnegan’s Wake and see how long he can stand it before telling them everything.”

         David looked at Katie, having no idea what Finnegan’s Wake was.

         “It’s a novel of gibberish written by James Joyce,” she said. “Nobody but an Irish lit scholar would ever admit to reading the whole thing.”

         “Sounds like a pretty mean thing to do to the guy. So you think they’ll try to pin the attacks on him?”

         “No, if he’s not the attacker they’ll charge him for assaulting the two of you—twice—and go back out lookin’ for the real perpetrator. If he does prove to be the attacker, they’ll proclaim victory, hand it to the courts and close the files. And I can go back to being Lead Investigator on the next case.” 

         The doctor came out, gave the two Americans a look-over and released them within minutes.

         “Y’know, David, I loved those shoes, and the cops took the heel I snapped off.”

         “Hey, how d’you think I feel about that nice scarf I stuffed in the guy’s mouth?”