Forma — Restaurant in Civitavecchia

I was impressed by the carefully crafted dishes served here. The meats were especially outstanding in that the temperature and crust were absolutely perfect. I've had meat dishes less good than this in 2-star-restaurants! Sauces, presentation, flavors were fantastic. Not under- or overseasoned, just perfectly mastered by someone who really knows how to create outstanding dishes. No doubt a lot of dedication goes into this level of cuisine. The issues I found at Forma have nothing to do with the kitchen and the chef's talent, they have to do with the wine selection and service. The wine list lacks diversity, be it in grape varieties or geographical origin (although this latter point might be debatable), but the main concern is availability: roughly a third of the wines in the list are marked "ND", non disponibile, unavailable. This is indicated in pencil, quite difficult to see in the low-light dinner setting, resulting in several disappointments ("Let's try this one" followed by "Oh, they don't have that wine anymore, either"). Service was minimal: no smiles, no ice bucket for the wine (which got too warm by the time we got the main dish). Wait times for the 3 courses we ordered were surprisingly low. I suspect this kitchen is well organized as well. Get the service right, revamp the wine list and you can have a Michelin star. That's how good...

We presented ourselves to Forma because I'd read that they had vegan options and we told the host that we would eat whatever vegan selections they had. We had the best, most beautiful, artfully presented, delicious meal. Our amuse bouche was bread smeared with truffle foam and black truffles. The olive oil served with the basket of delicious homemade bread was a beautiful verde shade. I normally don't eat oil but I could not resist this and it did not disappoint. Our antipasta was assorted tempura-like fried veggies on a bed of potato foam and a dish with potato foam topped with grilled asparagus, spinach and artichokes. Our primi was a wonderful fettuchini in a very fresh tomato sauce and a risotto in a pumpkin cream with balsamic and hazelnuts. As if we needed more to eat, we ended with an intense raspberry sorbet with a tuille, blueberries and blackberries. Everything...

Great atmosphere and great service (minus wine understanding). The issue we had here was expectations and so maybe the issue is ours alone. We've been to Michelin rated restaurants (ranging from a mention to 3 stars). The food at Forma was very good, but just not at the level similar to previous rated restaurants we've been to before. That being said, the bill was 1/5 what we have paid before (1/15 in the case of Alinea) although it did cost $5k to get to Italy). Everything we had was with truffles and our expectation was the normal bold and delicious black/white truffle flavor. In this case they were present, there was A LOT of them, but that distinctive flavor was not there. It's likely that there's a difference between what we're used to and what this was and we'll accept that as immaturity. Nonetheless, I would recommend Forma, just with minor reservations (don't ask for...