Villa Crespi - Orta San Giulio
One of three dining rooms
Rating: 16/20
Where: Orta San Giulio, Italy
When: Dinner for 2 on 8 December 2022
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 190-240 Euro, Wine Pairing 100 Euro
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Deconstructed versions of classic Italian dishes; co-located with luxurious hotel
“Villa Crespi” is not just the name of a restaurant, it's also the name of the hotel that the restaurant is located in. Less than an hour's drive northwest of Milan, the “Villa” is sitting on a hill overlooking the Lago d'Orta, a pretty lake in the foothills of the Italian Alps. The building's design is Moorish, meaning highly ornamental exteriors and interiors. The hotel rooms are also full of old-school decor - not exactly my preferred style, but it’s obviously a very convenient place to stay after having dinner (and associated alcoholic beverages).
Villa Crespi is the latest entrant in Italy's three-Michelin-star club - it received its third star exactly a month before our visit. I was glad to return to Piedmont after our trip to Piazza Duomo about 2 1/2 months prior. After some trouble with the restaurant’s reservation page, I opted for a room-and-dinner package that guaranteed a dinner reservation along with a hotel room. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to get a specific tasting menu and wine pairing, so I can’t comment on the other options.
Our dinner reservation was for 8pm, but since the restaurant opened at 7:30pm, we figured that we'd try our luck at that earlier time. No luck - “you have a reservation at 8, so you need to wait”. We went to the lounge, intending to get a pre-dinner cocktail. But after sitting down, we waited, and waited, and then waited some more. It took over ten minutes to get the attention of the server who was attending to other guests while avoiding any acknowledgement of our existence. Since the room was fairly small, it would have been difficult to overlook us. The server was perfectly friendly once he started taking our order, and recommended the house daiquiri with champagne “since it is a light summer drink”. Well, it was December, but the cocktail was indeed excellent, maybe an 18 if I rated alcoholic beverages.
It was almost 8:30pm by the time we were finally taken to our table. The restaurant is split over three dining rooms, and we were seated in a winter garden with large windows that overlook the grounds and the lake (unfortunately it was dark at the time of our dinner). After a minute, we realized that right behind us was a noisy air conditioning unit that blew hot air into the room. Our request for a different table (there were still several empty ones at this point) was rebuffed with a “no, but we can turn the AC off”. Our reward: a less noisy, but also slightly chilly evening. Given the price of the typical dinner here, it seemed odd to have tables located in what felt and sounded like a utility closet.
When we sat down, we were poured a house sparkling wine as an aperitif. It was included in the package that I had booked, and was easily the worst wine that I've had in quite a while, a contender for my lowest rating on Vivino. We had plenty of time to ponder this wine and the AC, because it took over thirty more minutes for any food to arrive at our table. Since our tasting menu was already pre-chosen, we didn't have to make any decisions, so we were literally just waiting (and enjoying the non-existent view). Why call guests to their table (“we're ready for you”), when you're clearly not ready for them?
For diners that didn't book a package, the restaurant offered three tasting menus of roughly the same length but with different dishes. In addition, there was an a la carte menu with even more choices. Wine pairings were available for all tasting menus. In our case, we had the mid-priced tasting menu, called “Italian Journey from South to North”. The dishes were inspired by local cuisine, progressing from, obviously, the South to the North of Italy. The wine pairing consisted solely of Italian wines, but they didn't follow the same geographic route. The wines were relatively plain, but still better that the atrocious sparkling wine from the beginning.
Five bite-sized appetizers heralded the long-awaited start of our dinner (at 9pm, one full hour after our reservation time). A little piece of bread topped with marinated tomatoes felt like a slightly crumbly bruschetta - nice enough 17. “Macaroni” were filled with a Neapolitan ragu. A lovely sauce, and the “pasta” was actually a tube made from filo dough 18. Fried gnocchi were filled with a Gorgonzola-like cheese and topped with ham, also quite tasty 18. Rice chips were topped with a foam of Gorgonzola cheese and celery. A strong cheese flavor and good crunch, but the chips themselves were nothing special 16. Finally, a teeny-tiny macaroon filled with foie gras was candy-like sweet, so that any potential taste of foie gras was lost among the sugar 15.
Next came a beef consomme served in a cocktail glass. We had the option to add a spray of vermouth, port or fino sherry to the broth. Based on our two choices, these sprays didn't really make that much of a difference. The beef broth was only lukewarm - hotter would have been nicer. Savory, with a light umami flavor, and a (possibly imagined) slightly fishy taste 16.
The last amuse bouche were pieces of salmon trout that had been marinated with citrus and then smoked. They were accompanied by a cream of cumin and carrot and a cream of celery, as well as a rice vinegar sauce. The latter acidic sauce was excellent, the fish very nice, and the creams added a bit of sweetness to the dish. Very, very good. Also very, very salty 19.
Sourdough bread was served warm and with a local butter. Pleasant with a good crunch 16.
Our tasting menu tour of Italy started in Sicily. Raw scampi had been massaged with salt and were served with sauces that evoked pizza flavors. A red tomato sauce and a white sauce made from “octopus water” (whatever that means) were topped with dried olives, oregano, basil and olive oil. The shrimp were of good quality and sweet, but the sauces were not very distinctive - they were very light and didn't have much flavor, maybe salt was missing? The paired wine was a good match for the tomatoes, it brought out more of their flavor 14.
Better were the following linguine with baby squid and a rye bread sauce - a signature dish of the chef. The pasta was cooked nicely al dente, and came in a huge portion (causing my dining companion, my sister, to proclaim that she was full after this course). The squid were excellent and cooked perfectly, the sauce a bit sweet but going well with the rest of the dish. Tasty, hearty, but also a fairly rustic dish, making it a bit of an outlier in this menu 17.
A red mullet filet had been split into two: the lower half had been pan fried, and the upper half cooked in a salamander (think: broiler). The two halves were then reunited on our plate, with deep fried zucchini slices sandwiched in between. Vinegar, garlic and mint provided more seasoning. The fish was topped by a green zucchini sauce and fried panko crumbles. Finally, a provola cheese sauce surrounded the dish. The fish was very nice, and it was actually possible to taste a subtle difference between the top and bottom parts of the fish. The panko added a little crunch, the cheese sauce was light and lovely, only the zucchini slices didn't add much to the result. The dish was served lukewarm (strangely, the plate was cold), and it might have rated higher had it been warmer 18.
Accompanying the fish was a butter bread seasoned with some herbs from the restaurant's garden, such as thyme, rosemary and marjoram. The bread was a bit oily, but nicely flaky and with a lovely subtle herb taste 18.
The main course of the dinner was pigeon, prepared in several different ways - and the dish was described so quickly, that my write-up might be more incorrect than usual. Pigeon supreme was wrapped in bacon. Pigeon leg was minced, spiced with curry and then breaded. Another leg was cooked wrapped in pigeon skin (I believe). More pigeon skin was prepared with a small piece of meat (on the left of the picture). There was a cracker topped with pigeon liver mousse, and a piece of foie gras topped with chocolate. Pigeon jus completed the presentation. With this many components, it's maybe no surprise that some were better than others. Overall, this was a pretty heavy, gamy dish. Very little about it was light, except maybe the curried leg, which was excellent, only a little fatty/fried tasting (18 by itself). The other leg had a nicely seasoned skin (17). The supreme was pretty good as well, but a pigeon lover (i.e. not me) would probably appreciate it more. The piece of pigeon on the left was particular gamy. I was not a fan of the pigeon liver mousse - it had a metallic, gamy, liver taste. But the oddest part of the dish was the foie gras. I generally love foie gras, but I didn't like this preparation at all: somehow the kitchen had managed to make foie gras taste stale and dry. Kind of like preparing a stick of butter and have the result not be fatty. Very weird. In the end, this whole dish was a mixed bag. There were only a few parts that I actually liked, a few that I appreciated, and some that I actively disliked. Maybe I'm just not in the pigeon-loving target demographic 15.
At this point, we were offered an optional cheese course. After some discussion, we chose to share a plate and the server went away to fetch the cheese cart. This is the last we heard on the topic, since a little later, the desserts started arriving. We were already pretty full, so we didn't feel like complaining, but it was an unusual omission.
The pre-dessert was a fake calamansi (a kind of citrus fruit), filled with prosecco cream, and little sour bonbons (“seeds”). The seeds were really the only thing that was citrusy about the dish, the cream made it pretty heavy 15 (my sister was more appreciative and would have rated this a 17).
Our main dessert was a deconstructed Pastiera, a Neapolitan tart. The plate contained Pastiera cream and ice cream, an almond sponge, white chocolate shards, candied oranges and a fake egg yolk made from honey, sugar and oranges. The fake egg yolk actually had the consistency of the real thing, with liquid inside as well - a neat accomplishment. We were told to mix all the components before eating, which made for a somewhat indistinctive mess. I think a real Pastiera cake would have made for a better dessert 16 (sister: 18).
Petit fours concluded our dinner. A pavlova with honey was sweet and light 17, a caprese cake with chocolate and ricotta was nicely crunchy 16, a fake strawberry made from strawberries, balsamic vinear and a basil leaf had a yummy, strawberry jam flavor 17. Not so successful was the mini baba rum with milk cream, it was soaked in liquid, but oddly enough, it was neither tasting of rum, nor particularly sweet 15. Finally, a “lobster tail” with cream, had the consistency of a very crunchy croissant, but just its crunchy outside part - yum. The sweet cream inside was nice as well 16.
Discussing the dinner afterwards, the service in particular stuck out as sub-par. I've already mentioned the waiting, the AC noise, the missing cheese, and the lack of apologies for any of the above. There were also smaller things that aren’t remarkable by themselves, but that somehow fit the pattern: no wine was topped off, even small left-overs in wine bottles were kept rather than poured. It's not that our servers were unfriendly, but they seemed to just do exactly what was needed for the job, and nothing more. There was none of that excitement to share and celebrate good food and wine that I’ve seen at other Michelin-starred restaurants. A pity.
Overall: A cross-section of dishes from all over Italy, most deconstructed in some way or other. There were a few really good dishes, but the majority wasn’t close to a three-star level. The service was friendly but impersonal, nobody went the extra mile to make guests feel welcome. I left probably more disappointed than I should have been based on the food alone 16.
