We both love opera, but he considers my Italians bombastic and trite, while I think his German needs editing and has difficulties making passion credible on stage. In the wine cellar, I find his beloved light French reds tart and forgettable, while he thinks my favoured merlot/cab sav blends are over-fruited thugs. We're both keen on history, but his obsession with battles and military hardware can try my patience, while he feels the same about my fascination with personalities, art and architecture. Both card-carrying "foodies", I'm sceptical about his classic French cuisine, which often over-complicates and has too many sauces and potatoes for my taste. He's unconvinced by the Italians.
Which is why Angela Hartnett's Murano is probably the best place we could possibly choose to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. (And my birthday.) Though Hartnett is best known as an Italian chef, the truth is that Murano's Michelin-starred menu brings us a culinary utopia where influences from Paris to Palermo come together to create the perfect fusion cuisine. Mr. Bencard feels French. The former Miss Ferrara feels Italian. Both are very happy.
Murano's pricing is elegantly simple: decide whether you're doing two, three, four or five courses, each with a set price, then pick your food. While options are laid out in what would be a traditional Italian order of dining, if you want to start with something from the third course, and follow up with two dishes from the first, they're happy to oblige. We went for four. Given the delicate serving sizes and the extras (amuse bouche, a bit of charcuterie, breads, pre-desert, petit four) this is the right level if you're hungry. Five would probably be excessive, and three would be more than sufficient ... but then you'd miss out on too much of the magic coming out of the kitchen.I started with rabbit tortellini in one of those light but flavour-packed sauces that demands you use a bit of bread to mop up every bit. (One of the earliest life lessons taught to me by my revered Sicilian grandfather. No wonder I've always had a weight problem.) Piers admittedly won the contest on this course with a salmon tartare that was exceptionally balanced, with rich fish, creamy dressing, crunchy veg and citric fruit combining to deliver a sunny Mediterranean afternoon on a plate. I wouldn't have traded, however, as I would have missed out on the Valpolicella that proves you can have light red that's also mellow and fruity. (Made by Italians, naturally.)
On to artichoke heart served with a blue cheese croquette. This tiny plate exemplified how fine dining can actually be Weight Watchers-friendly. Just a quarter of the heart, with a croquette the size of the top half of your thumb, yet packed with enough flavour to power a dish four times its size. It was a course meant for cutting up into tiny slivers, savouring each one with a rather bizarre wine from Slovenia that was overly-minerally on its own but a perfect match for the notoriously hard-to-pair ingredients. Piers, meanwhile, was blissfully ensconced in a crab salad and a glass of Reisling.
We split the cote de boef for our main. (This has a supplemental charge.) A dish to make me weep for all the vegetarians in the world. Simple, perfectly cooked, carved off the bone at the table. Perfection.
Though Murano has a fascinating wine list, we let the sommelier put together a wine flight for us. This is a great option, as she pairs the right wine for each individual dish, and we found every choice to be flawless. Note, however, that the "about" £45 each is quite flexible, especially when you choose to have a second glass of the extraordinarily tasty St. Emillion she chose for the beef.
If there's one dish on the planet that best exemplifies Franco-Italian fusion, it has to be pistachio soufflé. The flavours of Italy packed into the most classical of French processes, Murano delivers the best I've ever had. This is what-I-want-for-my-last-meal-on-Earth stuff, with a towering rise, punchy flavours and a rich chocolate sauce to obliterate any health effects of the egg-white based soufflé. Aware that it was both my birthday and our anniversary, the kitchen piled on the sugar with an additional lemon tart and a triple chocolate delice with almond brittle and black currant sorbet, decorated with celebratory messages in chocolate sauce. I thought briefly of those profligate Romans with their vomitoriums off their banqueting halls, so they could pause and make room for more courses of culinary delight. Disgusting to modern sensibilities, but in this situation I could understand their strategy. I let modem sensibility prevail and sent 2/3rds of the bonus desserts back to the kitchen. But not before sampling enough to assure you, dear reader, that Murano is a haven for those with a sweet tooth.As if to drive that point home, the petit four arrived. Squares of palate-cleansing quince jelly and cannoli the size of your pinkie. "Delicious," I said dubiously of the frothy citric concoction inside, " but not really cannoli cream."
"So much better than those heavy door stops you made me eat at Missouri baking," he insisted. "Light pastry, subtle filling ... they've made them French!"
I decided not to argue. In marriage as in restaurants, fusion and compromise bring out the best in us.
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