Issue #05/60, March 10 - 24, 1999  

I have a couple questions for you: Which part of Italy borders Switzerland? The north. And where in Italy is the province of Umbria? That's right, the center. The very center, as in it's the only Italian province that's 100% landlocked. Knowing this information, what is one to make of an Italian restaurant where the head chef allegedly hails (according to the obsequious waiter) from the northern province of Umbria, on the border with Switzerland? Well, if that restaurant is Palazzo--the palatially decorated eatery set amid the none-too-eXhole-friendly Italian boutiques on Kuznetsky Most--then you take the apparent lack of correspondence with outer realities with a grain of salt and go about the business of ordering your overpriced lunch. Which is exactly what we did when confronted with this dilemma.

We started with the house aperitif, a syrupy concoction of some pinkish Kool-Aid substance and white wine served in a martini glass. I don't recommend it--particularly first thing the day after a late-night drinking binge. To wash that down, we ordered some classico raw-meat appetizers: prosciutto e melone and beef carpaccio. The prosciutto was certainly among the best I've had here in Moscow, but also the most expensive at $22. The carpaccio ($19), on the other hand, was a mind-bogglingly tasteless pile of brittle meat and apparently frozen cheese, all of which was being held carefully at a temperature of about -5C. You win some and you lose some, as those sports guys or whosits like to say. A $12 Caprese salad is one of the fewer more affordable starter options.

By this time we were well into our glasses of house wine--some very respectable Dolcetto d'Alba (and d'Asti, after they ran out of the first) for $6 a pop. There's also slightly fancier stuff available at $10 per glass and up to $480 per bottle, but there's little point getting into all that unless you're a vulgar New Russian who can't tell the difference between Moet & Chandon and sparkling grape juice. Which brings us to the soup, a solo effort on Fellow Eater's part involving a $10 cream of asparagus number with the emphasis very firmly on the cream. I tried a bite myself and it was tasty enough (although no comparison to the standard-setter served a few blocks north at Figaro), but as Fellow Eater noted, "the soup started out good, but gradually worsened as the cream accumulated in the region of my pancreas." Indeed. Stracciatella alla romana ($6) was one of the honorable- alternate selections that nonetheless remained sitting on the bench.

Things were altogether more favorable with the pasta and rice course. I had the risotto alla milanese ($20), a pleasingly warming number that might have benefited from the addition of some porcini mushrooms (available in a separate risotto for $23). Fellow Eater's $23 tagliatelle "renato"--with a hearty tomato sauce highlighted by porcini mushrooms, garlic, and rosemary--was a genuine treat and perhaps the meal's highlight, albeit a pricey one. We decided to make do with a single main entree, a lively veal filet in red wine sauce ($25) that lived up to our expectations of it. We would have opted for one of the numerous tempty grilled seafood items were it not for the spineless waiter's categorical refusal to recommend something and his insistence that all the fish was equally fresh. Horse manure, as Jean MacKenzie might say in a similar situation.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, the sweet stuff. I had what I'm loathe to admit was a pretty damn good tiramisu ($6), although I'm still opposed to the dish in general for sociopolitical reasons of my own that have no place in this review. Fellow Eater's crepes with ice cream and berries ($7) were light and luscious, making the desserts a solid ending to a rather topsy-turvy but not unamusing meal.

Oh yeah: the coffee was a total bust. Fellow eater's cappuccino ($4) tasted more or less like espresso, and my espresso ($3) ... well, better not to say what that tasted like.