Italian Food In France

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Near the Arc de Triomphe, off the Place de l'Etoile is another superb restaurant, Sormani. Owned and run by Jean-Pascal Fayet since January 1985, it has always been considered as one of the best Italian restaurants in Paris. Jean-Pascal Fayet is one of these chefs who keep renewing the Italian cuisine. He is a truffle lover, and you will not be surprised to find these mushrooms in many specialties. You may go for them as they are exquisite. Everything here is original and a subtle mixture of tradition and new tastes, where the authenticity of the ingredients is always respected.

As starters, you might be tempted by a salad of lentils with clams and squids in a basil cream, or the soup of white beans with bacon and scampi, or a simple carpaccio of tuna. Then you will want a fish, the catch of the day, or sea robin fillets, with mashed potatoes in olive oil with basil. Or you will prefer pastas, ravioli with duck foie gras and mushrooms, ravioli with lobster and tarragon, tagliatelle with bacon, white beans and black truffles, or with mashed onions and veal sweetbreads, ravioli with goat cheese and black truffle, cannelloni with cod and leeks. For meat you will chose between a hot beef carpaccio with black truffle, a grilled veal kidney with mashed potatoes and olive oil, a grilled veal liver with mashed onions and spinach, or a subtle piece of veal stuffed with black truffle.

Since you are not on a diet, you will want a dessert, a splendid tiramisu, a hot chocolate pyramid with caramel sauce, or an assortment of sherbets and ice creams. The wine list will fulfill all your expectations, with wines from many Italian regions. White: Pinot Grigio della Staffa (Friuli), Conte della Vipera (Umbria), Nozze d'Oro (Sicily), or red: Venetia (94 Amarone Luigi Righetti), Piedmont (94 Barolo Pio Cesare, 95 Barolo Marcarini La Serra, 98 Dolcetto d'Alba L. Sandrone), Tuscany (97 Santa Cristina, 97 Peppoli Chianti Classico, 96 Sassicaia, 94 Sangioveto, 96 Cabreo, 96 Pomino Rosso). For two, you will pay about $160, and for lunchtime, there is also a 3 course menu at $35 per person, without wine.Jean-Pascal owns also 2 smaller Italian restaurants worth trying, Le Vinci and La Cafetière.

In the heart of the Saint-Germain des Prés quarter, in one of the very typical streets of Paris, the Pizza Santa Lucia offers pizzas among the best ones in Paris. If you have cocktails before your meal, and if it is not too crowded (as it is not on the menu), ask for a pizza pane, a plain pizza with nothing on it. You will find it much better than any crackers. At the entrance, a large antipasti buffet raises your appetite. Then you can see in the back a true wood fire heated oven in which the pizzas are cooked, and which gives them this special and unmistakable taste.

You can have all kinds of pizzas, 4 cheese, Neptune (tuna and tomato), Cantona (sea food), Mimmo (tomato, mozzarella, eggplant), Mollicone (sausage, ham, egg, tomato, cheese), Napoletana (tomato, cheese, anchovies, capers). For pastas, the choice between the typical Italian specialties is also very wide, spaghetti with tomato and basil, with clams, parpadelle with prosciutto, with salmon, penne all'arrabbiata or with mushrooms and ham, tortiglioni with tomato, eggplant and mozzarella. You may also ask for fish (grilled or fried squids, fried scampi, mussels) or meat (beef fillet with Gorganzola or pepper, scaloppini, bocconcini). To drink, you will chose within a short but well selected Italian wine list: Chianti classico Villa Antinori, Lambrusco Amabile, Barbera, Cabreao or Yago Valpolicella. For two, you will spend about $70.

In the rue du Bac, just across from the Bon Marché department store, you will find Le Petit Tiberio. It is a small authentic Italian restaurant, like any trattoria you would see in a small town in the South of Italy. Apart from the specials of the day, the menu list may seem short, but you can find in it everything you want: as starters, a choice between a tomato and mozzarella salad, prosciutto di Parma, mozzarella alla Tiberio (tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, olives, peppers), carpaccio, eggplants and tomatos parmigiana. Then the home made pastas confirm that you are really in Italy: tagliatelle Bolognese or Carbonara, penne alla Tiberio (with tuna, olives and grapes), fettuccine with tomato and basil, ravioli with spinach and ricotta, spaghetti alla putanesca (tomato sauce with olives, capers, anchovies and peppers). For meat, you will chose between a fegato alla Veneziana (veal liver), piccatina al limone (veal steack with lemon), or with Marsala sauce, tomato and capers sauce, mozzarella or mushrooms. For two, the cost will be about $50.

Not very far away from the Place de la Bastille and its Opera, there is a superb restaurant and pizzeria in the rue de la Roquette, which leads to the Pere Lachaise cemetery. It is called Il Farnese, run by Giorgio and Marilena Tano. It is a very friendly atmosphere where you will feel at home, in Italy.

You will eat there a true Naples pizza, with a thin crust in the middle, and a thicker and crispy one on the sides. There are all kinds of pizzas, with anything you want on them. Besides pizzas, you will of course have also a wide choice of pastas, prepared in a frank and authentic way: penne, spaghetti, tagliatelle, ravioli, lasagne, with all the Italian fillings and sauces you may dream of. For meat, you can try the superb saltimbocca alla Romana, or any of the scaloppini (alla Milanese, with ham and cheese, or with lemon and cream). Don't forget to ask for the specials of the day which are always a good surprise. The Italian wine list will help you to have good classical Italian wines to drink with your food (Chianti, Valpolicella, Barolo, Barbera). When going there, if you run into a man looking like Rocco Siffredi, don't be surprised, as chances are it is the genuine Rocco, who happens to be a close relative of the owners. For two, it will cost about $50.