Osteria Francescana — Restaurant in Modena

I am not an hater nor a food blogger, and generally don't comment about restaurants, but couldnt avoid this time. Expectations were set really high, and this didn't help, but unfortunately the experience and the food didn't deliver. I will leave the price outside of these considerations as I was totally aware of it and was happy to pay an high price for a high quality meal.

I will instead focus on the day in which I decided to visit Osteria Francescana, Sunday Easter at Dinner. Unfortunately I book it in the rush of the booking system as availabilities were going away rapidly and I wanted to get a spot at all cost, but in normal circumstances I would have never booked a restaurant like this on a particular day such as Easter.

I am making this consideration, because Massimo was not in the restaurant / kitchen when I went - and this is something that I guess happens from time to time - but what caught me by surprise is that there was not even the Maitre nor the Sommelier in the restaurant. Or at least didn't look like it. I know that if I will get a reply by Osteria Francescana to this post they will say that I am wrong, that they were both there, but didnt look like it to me.

To give you an example, I didnt want to do the wine pairing, as I am not particularly keen on wine (particularly the red one), but given my girlfriend loves it, I was keen to have a good bottle. After good ten minutes with the first dish coming out (and the wine pairing menu served to others), I was still looking at the wine cart, with no sommelier in sight... which was the first red flag... and at that point I decided simply to go for the wine pairing as well and made it simple. Cannot complain about this decision as the wine served was absolutely excellent (but I am not a particular wine connoisseur).

Second red flag of the lack of a sommelier was the complete lack of explanation of the wine poured in our glasses. A waiter was coming, pouring the wine and leaving, just telling us the name of the wine and showing the bottle, without any sort of narrative with it, which is pretty custom when there is a sommelier in the restaurant instead (and general practice in any high quality restaurant).

All dishes came with no explanation, a part from a very young (and very polite and well prepared) waiter who was clearly doing his best, but far away from an experienced maitre that I am sure is on the pay-book of Osteria Francescana. Dishes were served, the ingredients explained, but again absolutely no narrative on the food development process

Service overall was very bad. Nobody removed from the table the wet towels that we were served at the beginning to clean our hands until I asked for it. Nobody was coming to clean our table from the bread crumbles till the dessert time.

Food I guess depends on personal taste, and I wont get into the merit. Definitely not the best meal I have ever had (to be clear, it was very good!), but probably expectations had a big role here. Nothing was too experimental and the wow effect was a bit lacking.

I appreciate the ESG trends, and I am keen on it, but the menu was almost vegetarian (with some fish if we want to say it all), but you cannot have the main course called "Fiorentina" and then dont serve meat but a vegetarian dish instead. It is not genius in my opinion. It is cost savings, and creates a sense of disappointment that was tangible across the clients in the room. Everybody in the room was puzzled. Then the dish itself was very good, but still...

The real disappointment for me was a weird spaghetti dish served after the pre-dessert and before the dessert. It was a normal spaghetti dish but cooked in cherries sauce. That was simply tasting bad across the board, and very few people finished it. Never happened before in a Michelin star restaurants. I am sure OF will reply saying I am lying, but unfortunately I am not!

Overall was a must-do experience once in a life time, but unfortunately I can avoid hiding the disappointment and after 2 days it is still not going away!

The final dessert was...

Honestly was very excited for this restaurant. The atmosphere, although a tiny bit stuffy, was in line with other restaurants of the same caliber around the world. The place felt a little contrived. Everyone enters at the same hour, so you feel as though you are being watched from every angle. That aside, the staff was mostly comprised of eager students during a 2-3 month internship from surrounding areas. Everyone was kind and friendly, which was refreshing. The sommelier, felt stuffy, but par for the course in a place of the same level elsewhere. Now let’s get to the food— the main heart of the experience which was the reason for attending. We had hoped for a multi course tasting menu, but we were advised to stick to the original a la carte menu, since we were first time diners. Since we were four diners, we decided to try all the dishes that Francesana was famous for. Since we were four people… two of us started with the five aged parmegiano antipasti, which was beyond rich and too heavy to start. We had a few bites of that each, and couldn’t even finish it between four of us. One had the foie gras popsicle w balsamic, which was very novel but would have been too much for one person. The other had the culatta, which was the best dish overall. They served a delicious sticky honey and salt bread, which pair amazingly w the culatta— with everything else, it was too heavy. We did not finish any of the four antipasti, due to the richness of the ingredients. Next up was the 1st course. Two ordered the tagliatelle ragu, which was excellent, but the portion was wasted due to it being too large. It was enough to share. One ordered the oyster/caviar risotto, also excellent, but equally large in size and went to waste. The fourth person ordered the parmigiano tortellinis which was beyond heavy and wasted, because one could only eat a few bites before feeling nauseous. Sickenly heavy and gluttonous, a true waste of good ingredients. Lastly was our third courses. We had ordered two “piggy goes to market”— each plate had large four pieces of pork belly, and some “piggies” cut from giardiniera. I am sorry but this dish was an embarrassment for the restaurant. The portl belly was ok, not tender, not overly tasty. The dish “decorated” with some sauces, and the pigs cut out of vegetables. Maybe this was something exciting 15 years ago, but we couldn’t believe the cost of what the plate was. We are seasoned diners with a world of experience, and we felt that we had been taken advantage of. The lobster dish was meager at best and the foui gras/caviar/meat conconction was the most contrived dish on the planet. I felt sorry for any foolish diner that enjoyed this thinking they were experiencing someone unique because clearly the chef was laughing all the way to the bank on these dishes. Each was flavored to the extreme, and almost inedible due to the heaviness of each bite. We would have been just as happy at the local mercato dining on local delicacies without the pomp and circumstance of such a contrived pretentious meal. Lastly, we had three desserts, again almost inedible. The lemon tart was the best of the lot, but not worth the 60 euro price tag. The zuppe inglese was a deconstructed mess with a gelatin overlay and everything underneath was just as good in any other local restaurant. And the last of it included a sacher torte inspired region dessert, which after two bites was equally heavy and rich, and no one could finish it. What a waste of food, not to mention a waste of money. €1600 was the total, we were four people, two adults/two children. One bottle of wine and two aperitivos of sparkling regional wine. I felt completely taken advantage of and honestly completely embarrassed for the establishment. I understand Massimo is a chef of noteriety, and appreciate that he is. But this meal had no resemblance of those qualities of a michelin starred chef, only of s chef whose fame has gone to his head, and he leaves his diners for fools who buy into his scheme. I would not...

Was it that the choice of water was Panna for flat or San Pellegrino for sparkling, both of which can be found at any grocery store? Or maybe it was the thin and crunchy breadsticks, whose most impressive quality was that they were the length of a forearm, rather than a selection of fresh Italian breads? No, but those certainly contributed to my (and my Italian partner’s) feeling of being completely and utterly scammed at Osteria Francescana.

Whatever originality, taste, and emotions the food once carried with it have apparently been replaced by bland, lazy dishes made by a chef caring more about proselytizing his beliefs about the environment than the dining experience of his customers. That is, of course, his prerogative, but one still expects the quality of a 3 Michelin Star restaurant. Instead it felt like Bottura was trying to ridicule his customers by seeing how bad he could make the meal, whilst charging €530 for the tasting menu and wine pairing.

Allow me to provide you with some insight into the meal as well as highlights. The menu was called Vieni in Italia con Me, which translates to Come to Italy with me, yet few dishes on the menu resembled any part of Italian cuisine. I daresay that most would likely shock any ordinary Italian. For example, the first dish, which included “Hot Chocolate,” “A Ciaccio like Blinis,” and Bignè. The hot chocolate smelled somewhat of chocolate, but tasted like beef broth. A Ciaccio like Blinis felt like something a Russian aristocrat would eat, minus the taste given that any Russian is aware that caviar goes far better with a good white bread and butter rather than whatever it was that Bottura scrambled together. The Bignè was, as the Italians say, così-così.

But I must say that I did manage to utter some sad laughter throughout the night, as there was a fun pervading theme (well, more of a sick joke): “Bottura’s take”. Any time our waiter would announce a dish with the phrase “this is Bottura’s take on…” my partner and I would just laugh because we knew that whatever was to come would be even worse than what had just preceded it. This began with a dish called “Textures of the North Adriatic.” It was served, literally with plastic wrap, on top of a small cup of fish soup, which was then removed. It was “Bottura’s take on a fish soup meant to bring attention to climate change.” Unfortunately, upon eating it, my attention turned to the fact that the Red Lobster (an American sea food chain) makes a better soup. This was followed by “Climate Change: Drought of the Po River.” The story behind this course was that long ago Bottura used to serve a dish whose name was something along the lines of “fish swimming up the Po river”, and upon seeing the river after a drought, decided to create this brown, tasteless, eyesore. Although Bottura showed us “his take on the climate crisis”, he managed to create a new crisis on our table. After that arrived a risotto no different from that of any other restaurant in Italy.

What came after, however, would shock any Italian living on any part of the globe. A dish comprised of ravioli coupled with escargot. One can’t help but to ponder, “Why? Just why?” and “I guess I simply wasn’t aware that escargot is Italian”.

Then a porchetta, but without any actual porchetta. Then “grilled venison”, which isn’t actually venison, but rather veggies with a venison sauce. Then a pasta with marmalade that was “Bottura’s take on bread and jam from his childhood.”

But the absolute highlight of the evening was the dessert, which comprised of a macaron, a cannolo, and chocolate. A happy ending! Just kidding. This was “Bottura’s take” on desserts, after all. The Macaron was actually made of liver, the connolo was a carbonara cannolo (like the pasta), the chocolate was with edible grass. And once again, one can’t help but to ponder - “have macarons actually been Italian this whole time?” Perhaps a better name for the menu would have been “vieni in un gabinetto francese con me” (come to a French toilet with me), with the footnote “Bottura’s take on...