The warm sun on your face, a salty breeze and turquoise mediterranean waters... The promise of crisp white wine and that slight metallic honey taste of fresh succulent seafood. Apart from the Jet Set crowd, decked in bright Pucci or Versace outfits, Sardinia's cuisine is a refined memory of it's fishing village past.I have a vivid memory of the Amalfi coast when I was not older than 12. Geographically not quite the same as Sardinia, but the gastronomically, the Italian coast has endless similarities. We had driven with my parents along the tiny, winding roads hugging the tumultuous cliffs that plunged down to the almost green waters.
We're in a restaurant perched high up there somewhere and there are glass windows all around. Glasses are clinking and the silverware sing against the plates. A large round dish in piled high with Scampi. A local crayfish which looks like a tiny elongated lobster. The shell is rather hard and if your fingers are not deft, you can waste all the precious meat, especially in the claws. My father and I have been feasting on this until the last one. You can tell, he wants it, but with all his fatherly love, he puts it on my plate.
A few years back we had the same experience with the local cousin of Scampi in San Sebastian on the Basque coast. This time with white wine. I couldn't help but text him right then and there, at the Fratelli Rossi dinner table when the little creatures came.
One does not order a steak in Sardinia. You must simply have the seafood. But of course only after all the antipasti you can get. Buffet tables, draped in a pristine, heavily - starched white cloth, are adorned with bowls of roasted vegetables, melanzane, carciofi, zucca... fresh mozzarella di bufala, if you're lucky burrata (a sort of cross between mozzarella and ricotta), pecorino, culatello, prociutto san daniele, real paper thin slices of mortadella...
Save some space for the fresh fish and Scampi, washed down with the local white wine - Vermentino.
Squeeze in some home made gelato- Gianni Pedrinelli makes a beautiful one with real vanilla beans and some cinnamon.
If you're lucky to have a great tour guide such as I did, my lovely bestfriends Ms. Alexandra, was working at the Billionaire club where we danced on free flowing champagne bubbles. At the end of the night you make a little stop in a pizzeria and have a real fire oven baked pizza margherita- just tomatoes, mozzarella and a bit of fresh basil.
Dinner at Fratelli Rossi
Tutti Scampi - over excited about my Scampi, I ordered them raw on ice then just simply grilled to perfection.
Dinner at Gianni Pedrinelli
Traditional Antipasti buffet, followed by a warm salad of baby squid and artichokes, then a rich spaghettini dish with clams, zucchini and fish roe.
