Last night, we had a fancy-ish dinner at Antica Arco. Our Italy trip started in Venice with the worst vacation food we’ve ever had. Everything improved after that and Rome proved to be a great foodie town.
At Antica Arco, we chose the tasting menu. Again, we were surprised at the size of the portions. By the third course, we were taking one bite and that was it. It was delicious, but it was just so much more food than we could eat. Probably because of the gelato we had today.
Our early posts were all about bad food…this last one is all about great food.
An amuse bouche from the chef. It was a creamy potato soup.
Raw amberjack with ginger and lime and spinach on top. This was such a clean and delicious bite.
Open kebob: We’re not sure what this was, but it was so delicious. Maybe lamb? Yogurt sauce? Definitely had pickled onions, which we both love. And some kind of slightly spicy sauce.
These were small ravioli filled with 30-month-old Parmesan cheese and topped with a bit of balsamic. Fantastic
This is when things got to be too much. This was delicious, but we barely ate any of it. A pasta with a fantastic tomato sauce and crispy pork.
Pork loin with roasted fennel. Honestly, one tiny bite was all we could manage.
Even though this was such a small bite, we couldn’t eat it. Goat cheese in a cannelloni. We tried to cancel this dish, but the chef had already prepared it. We didn’t eat it.
After all that, dessert was included so we each ordered something we would never typically pick. This one had basil ice cream, a ricotta cream, lemon curd and something else. It was beautiful to look at, but not especially a great dish. That was fine, since we didn’t want anything else to eat.
This dish featured a tonka bean cookie layer (we have no idea what that was) and some ginger ice cream. Those creamy pillow things were blonde chocolate and then it had a caramel sauce and candied ginger.
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It was a nice experience and the restaurant was beautiful and the service was great. It gave us a chance to talk about the trip and our favorite memories over some dishes we’ve never had. We’ll be trying to prepare a couple of those, plus some others from throughout the trip. For the most part, the food here has been simple, high quality ingredients perfectly prepared. If it’s not in season, the Italians don’t cook or serve it.
Kim & Betsy 