Restaurant: Cocchi Ristorante
Location: Parma, Italy
Date: June 6, 2011
Rating: Amazing traditional!
Today we ventured out to Parma, home of Parmesan and Prosciutto. We met up with a friend of a friend who took us for lunch to this local place for a spectacular traditional lunch.
Not too much to look at from the outside.
Inside we have a number of rooms, decorated in drawings and paintings from 20th century masters.
The opening bread are various baked cracker like things and thick breadsticks. These are light and crunchy.
Lambrusco is the local drink of choice for these occasions. This was described by our host as the “only Lambrusco Frizzante with subtly.” It tastes like sangra with more carbonation and less fruit.
The first course are just some plates of top notch young parmesan and…
Relatively fresh salame. These were both wonderful. The salame was soft, but very very meaty.
Next course is the traditional Parma way of eating crudo. On these sopapilla-like fried dough puffs.
Here is the ham. They had some name for it, perhaps cutello. It’s a kind of prosciutto, available only in Parma — very fresh. Served with a little butter. Eaten by itself the stuff was wonderfully light and tasty.
Shown here on the puff.
A variety of grilled vegetables.
This was a spectacular implementation of a classic local pasta. Homemade, stuffed with riccotta and spinach, and in a simple butter sauce.
It’s then doused with parmesan.
The tender inside.
Tuna with zucchini and balsamic drizzle.
Another traditional regional dish. Veal stuffed with prosciutto, and an egg and parmesan quiche-like filling. The potatoes were very salty but excellent for their type. This is a sort of the high end version of the dish I was often served as an American in Europe: fries and mystery meat.
An apple strudel-like dessert.
And the obligatory expresso.
The have quite the supply of grappa and the like.
This was one of the hands down best traditional local Italian meals I’ve had. Everything felt not only very typical, but the ingredients were top notch, and the food completely on-point.
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