John & Sheelagh come to Italy! Bra & Pollenzo.

we had a lunch reservation and i was pretty certain that the restaurant closed at 2 so we zipped our way through the vineyards and down the hills heading to Bra - hometown of Carlo Petrini and home to the Slow Food headquarters. so appropriately enough, and being a loyal student, we ate at Osteria del Boccondivino - the first Slow Food restaurant. the courtyard which the restaurant looks over is where the Slow Food headquarters is.Much to my surprise, they were still open - packed actually - and still honoured our late arrival. the menu is not only based on locally sourced and seasonal foods, it is full of Slow Food Presidia products - small quality and tradition-based producers that Slow Food works to protect. we had lardo, salsiccia di Bra e carne curda battuta al coltello (more cured meat), fagottino di melanzane e roccaverano, gnocchi di patate con pomodoro e olive taggiasche, coniglio "grigio di carmagnola" all 'arneis and of course the cheese selection.

we didn't wander around Bra too much and headed straight to nearby Pollenzo where the other University of Gastronomic Sciences campus is. Like our campus in Colorno is an old regal palace, the Pollenzo campus used to be the home to King Carlo Alberto. Since the Slow Food Int'l Assoc. restored it to make it an international center for food, wine and culture, it is now not only a UNESCO World Heritage Site but home to La Banca del Vino, Guido Ristorante and the Albergo dell'Agenzia.

I gave my parents the brief tour of the campus from what i remembered when we visited previously with the class and then had our own self guided tour of the wine bank. they seemed a little busy with a ferrari-touring crowd and being a student, i think the woman assumed i knew what to tell my parents. but she was wrong. so, we wondered around the cellar amongst the boxes and boxes of kept wines going from one region of italy to another. La  Banca del Vino is not only a museum showing off Italy's best wineries but is a place where these wineries can store their wine during the aging process. usually you can have a tasting afterwards but we didn't have a real tour and we were wined out anyways. 

wedding destination #4

cocktails before dinner in the pretty hotel's courtyard.

pretty azienda at night.

for dinner, keeping it local, we dined at Guido. it was a formal but very simple setting. a huge room with tall ceilings and big windows looking onto the dark night. again, we were one of the first to arrive, minus one other table of young men but slowly the entire restaurant filled up with well dressed people - some with a curiously-sniffing dog, some seeming on an anniversary date and others hogging the waiters and sommeliers with questions. the italian-speaking waiters (were they UNISG students?) appeared on their best behaviour and we were handed a huge leather bound book of wines to choose from. i don't exactly remember what we ate, but it was tasty, interesting combinations, and nicely presented like they were works of art. 

chicken with courgette.

stuffed onion.

pork with some gelatin

tortelli with foie gras.

courgette soup.

slow cooked tradition-based meat ravioli

offal bits.

and i have no idea. mum thinks it was guinea hen that was brought to us but we didn't order.

it's a really beautiful place for a campus although my heart belongs in Colorno. i probably would say otherwise if i was accepted in the May program, but as sad as it is that this is the last UNISG year for Colorno, Pollenzo is not a bad place to be. the Azienda is full of food, wine and cultural information - they have restored it beautifully and keep it run very well.