Ristorante Arnolfo

I’m in a dilemma. I want to write nice things about Arnolfo. It’s a good restaurant. It has two Michelin-stars for goodness sakes. It champions local and regional cuisine and Chef-Patron Gaetano Trovato engineers a modern, haute cuisine twist to everything on the menu. The food is delicate and refined. The setting is glorious, the staff welcoming, knowledgeable and attentive. The whole experience is everything that a two-star Michelin restaurant should be.

So what’s my dilemma, you ask? Well, that’s all I have to say about it, really. One paragraph. The entire evening and about £300 worth of food and wine, condensed into a single paragraph. It’s just not good enough, is it? The Guild of Food Writers would most certainly not approve. I need to do better.

I could mention that their set menus are themed around meat-based or fish-based meals, and that we chose the fish menu, and that it was great (describing food as ‘great’ is also not something the Guild of Food Writers would approve of and is punishable by flogging, I do believe). The food combinations were a tad too complex to remember the details or take a note of at the table, as I would’ve spent the entire meal scribbling in my notebook (you might expect to find something like ravioli of red prawns with potatoes and lemongrass as a starter, for example), yet flavours were simple and the presentation was attractive but not overly fussy. This is a very confident restaurant. A chef who knows what he’s doing and how to achieve it, and a front of house polished to a sparkling finish (the Guild also don’t like clichés such as ‘polished to a sparkling finish’).

But, dear reader, the real dilemma that I am struggling with – the most significant Faustian battle inside me – is an internal debate I’ve been having about whether Tuscan food should be rustic or fancy. The Jonesy who likes to dine at Michelin-star restaurants would argue that haute cuisine is all about refinement, and there is nothing wrong with taking bold and hearty Italian dishes and turning them into something delicate and sophisticated. But the Jonesy who likes to gorge himself on gigantic bowls of mamma’s homemade pasta would balk at that, gesticulate and shout profanities with his mouth half-full. Tuscan food is rustic because the countryside is rustic and the lifestyle of the common man, by and large, is still a very basic one, so the food and culture reflects that. It should be championed and there is no need to refine it. How could someone take a bowl of slow-cooked wild boar stew with locally-made polenta and want to turn that into a delicate little picture on a gleaming white plate? What do you gain by doing that? And more importantly, what do you lose?

This was supposed to be a restaurant review but it has turned into a nonsensical debate about rustic food versus haute cuisine, and my conclusion is that both are good in their own ways, and both deserve to be explored, hailed and loved by one and all. Haute cuisine, after all, is a celebration of the finer details of what you might call rustic food. It was the contrast of having dined at the splendid Ristorante Fattoria followed by a meal at the chic Arnolfo that sparked this inner dispute, and I do think that it’s an interesting one that applies to all cuisines and cultures, and ultimately comes down to the diner – what do you want to eat today? If you’re in Tuscany and want some haute cuisine, head out into the hills and visit Arnolfo. If it’s rustic you want, go to Ristorante Fattoria. Tell mamma I sent you.

Arnolfo Ristorante, via XX settembre 50, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Siena, Italy. Tel. +39 0577 920 549. Website: www.arnolfo.com