Casa Maria Luigia is one of my all time favorite dining experiences. It serves the “best hits” of Osteria Francescana, a friendly way to be introduced to Chef Massimo’s brilliance. My meal there went far beyond the brilliance of the cuisine – each course was a heartfelt story, a window into the life of Chef Massimo, from his childhood memories to his visionary progressions as the ‘maestro’. Every single dish was thus exceptionally memorable, from the story to the presentation to the immense detail put into creating each component. The atmosphere is very homey – we eat in the annex of the country villa in 4 communal tables of 8 each. There’s probably more staff than there are patrons – service is beyond attentive and friendly, and it felt like eating at the fanciest home dinner party.
We start with the Mont St Michel, inspired by a childhood road trip to Mont St Michel that opened up Chef Massimo’s culinary worldview beyond that of Modena. The dish is served in an oyster shell with lamb tartare at the bottom, sourced from lambs raised by the sea marshes to be naturally a little salty (Agneau de pre sale). An oyster emulsion covers the lamb, and it is then topped with apple cider granita – all three foods that chef had on that special trip to Mont St Michel. The creamy oyster emulsion captures the essence of oyster so phenomenally that you’d want to lick the shell clean, while the refreshing granita from apple cider contrasts in every regard. When you eat them together, the two stay dissonant and don’t mix. The lamb at the bottom was tender and chewy, playing a subtle supportive role in its flavor.
The cod is from another childhood memory – a dish that chef grew up eating every Friday. However the cod here has become enlivened from its usual salted cod form. It is first poached in lemon oil that provides dominantly zesty overtones. The pesto underneath is made from vesuvian tomatoes, capers, and almonds, while the green sauce is also made from tomatoes capers and olives. The combination is refreshing and accentuates the flavors of cod, a fairly tasteless fish.
The third dish, pasta al pesto in abstract, was born out of a mistake. The story goes that a new Korean chef ambitiously made and botched this classic pasta, but in the spirit of reducing food waste a genius idea was conceived to turn it into a miso. The dish thoughtfully brings pasta al pesto to Japan then back to Italy again, featuring a chawanmushi made from pine nuts and parmigiano, herbs and familiar classics of green beans and potatoes on top, and lastly the pasta al pesto drizzled on. The result is incredible – the basil hits on taste, but after a second something undescribable takes over and it leaves you amazingly satisfied… that flavor is pure umami, and it lingers for a couple seconds. It’s rather inexplicable how the aging process like miso creates such a pure and delicious flavor. The green beans is the perfect supplement in texture, while the baby mint is delightful.
The 5 ages of parmigiano reggiano predates Osteria Francescana. It has only two ingredients – parmigiano, and time. Mother time does all the telling for this dish – the depth in the taste grows with age, while the 5 consistencies of the cheese counter this. The oldest 50 month cheese is a foam that is fleeting in flavor, while the youngest is in the soufflé that offers the most intense flavor. If you’re wondering 30 is a mousse, 36 is a liquid cream, and 40 is a wafer. The dish is breathtakingly simple yet complex, and captures the essence of the region.
Next is the crunchy part of the lasagna. This dish is painstakingly made, not at all like making a lasagna. It is made of 3 types of colorful spaghetti – green is with herbs, yellow is with parmigiano, and red is with tomato – cooked al dente and then each blended, before being rolled out to create a long Italian flag. This ‘dough’ is then baked and dehydrated, followed by a fry and a smoking, before lastly being torched to create the flavor and crunchy texture of lasagna. The bolognese sauce is mostly from cuts with high gelatin, avoiding fat for a clean palate, while the bechamel comes in a foam. The dish is exactly like how it is advertised – imagine if you took the best parts of lasagna – the cream, crispy corner, and a hearty ragu – and made it a dish. It’s peak lasagna. The joys of eating this dish reminded me of why it was my favorite pasta during my childhood. The texture of the lasagna was like eating a very airy shrimp chip, probably even better than any lasagna corner honestly.
The main course of the evening is called “Beautiful, psychedelic, spin painted veal, charcoal grilled with glorious colors as a painting”. It is inspired by contemporary artist Damien Hirst’s spin paintings, in which the canvas rotates at a high speed as paint is applied. The dish’s thesis is an exercise in fast and slow, inspired by a visit to Burger King to see Hirst’s art. It takes from Italian fast food – Tuscan grilled meats – but is actually slow cooked for days, deceptively first marinated in smoked oil and covered in the ashes of herbs and vegetables to mimic the flavor of grilled meat. Lastly, each color is a reduction of the side garnished typically served with the meat – beets, potatoes, peppers, herbs, and sauces. At the start, I tried to analyze every flavor of the sauces separately, but I gave up and decided to just follow blindly. The sauces, all sweet, came together like a garden medley of sweetness. The veal, so young yet resilient, perfectly encapsulates the contradiction between fast and slow. It was a confusing dish, but in a wonderful way.
The Caesar salad in bloom is inspired by the Caesar salad, and literally love. The dish originates from a date with Laura at the NY four seasons where they were served a Caesar salad, but has evolved since joining the menu into a reflection of chef’s love for Laura. The flowers and aromatic herbs come from their garden, a vinaigrette from elderflower was specially made for the occasion, as well as a syrup from chamomile and a perfume from distilled violet leaves, elderflower and bergamot. The dish was beautiful but probably the weirdest thing I ate that night; it just didn’t make sense to me in terms of flavors. It was no longer a Caesar salad except they were both salads I suppose. I smelled the floral components as it was being served, as if I was in a fresh garden, but eating flowers isn’t the same pleasant experience. The serving order was weird too, accompanying the main course but it wasn’t dessert either. Outside of floral notes, the sweet elderflower vinaigrette was at the heart of the lettuce.
For dessert, we had the signature. The story goes that one night, Massimo’s sous chef Taka dropped the lemon tart by accident. At that moment of panic, Massimo saw something special: a beautiful imperfection in an otherwise perfect dessert, allegorical to southern Italy. The dish is thus an ode to imperfection, celebrating its beauty and embracing the unexpected. Gastronomically, was it better to serve the tart this way than like a normal tart? I think so. This is because structural integrity is no longer a concern, allowing the team to use more liquid sauces. The shell was also replaced into a thin biscuit, which played a lesser component in the dessert. These were welcome changes that further emphasized the beautiful lemons of southern Italy.
I’ll keep the last dish, surprise surprise, a surprise :’)
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Casa Maria Luigia is one of my all time favorite dining experiences. It serves the “best hits” of Osteria Francescana, a friendly way to be introduced to Chef Massimo’s brilliance. My meal there went far beyond the brilliance of the cuisine – each course was a heartfelt story, a window into the life of Chef Massimo, from his childhood memories to his visionary progressions as the ‘maestro’. Every single dish was thus exceptionally memorable, from the story to the presentation to the immense detail put into creating each component. The atmosphere is very homey – we eat in the annex of the country villa in 4 communal tables of 8 each. There’s probably more staff than there are patrons – service is beyond attentive and friendly, and it felt like eating at the fanciest home dinner party.
We start with the Mont St Michel, inspired by a childhood road trip to Mont St Michel that opened up Chef Massimo’s culinary worldview beyond that of Modena. The dish is served in an oyster shell with lamb tartare at the bottom, sourced from lambs raised by the sea marshes to be naturally a little salty (Agneau de pre sale). An oyster emulsion covers the lamb, and it is then topped with apple cider granita – all three foods that chef had on that special trip to Mont St Michel. The creamy oyster emulsion captures the essence of oyster so phenomenally that you’d want to lick the shell clean, while the refreshing granita from apple cider contrasts in every regard. When you eat them together, the two stay dissonant and don’t mix. The lamb at the bottom was tender and chewy, playing a subtle supportive role in its flavor.
The cod is from another childhood memory – a dish that chef grew up eating every Friday. However the cod here has become enlivened from its usual salted cod form. It is first poached in lemon oil that provides dominantly zesty overtones. The pesto underneath is made from vesuvian tomatoes, capers, and almonds, while the green sauce is also made from tomatoes capers and olives. The combination is refreshing and accentuates the flavors of cod, a fairly tasteless fish.
The third dish, pasta al pesto in abstract, was born out of a mistake. The story goes that a new Korean chef ambitiously made and botched this classic pasta, but in the spirit of reducing food waste a genius idea was conceived to turn it into a miso. The dish thoughtfully brings pasta al pesto to Japan then back to Italy again, featuring a chawanmushi made from pine nuts and parmigiano, herbs and familiar classics of green beans and potatoes on top, and lastly the pasta al pesto drizzled on. The result is incredible – the basil hits on taste, but after a second something undescribable takes over and it leaves you amazingly satisfied… that flavor is pure umami, and it lingers for a couple seconds. It’s rather inexplicable how the aging process like miso creates such a pure and delicious flavor. The green beans is the perfect supplement in texture, while the baby mint is delightful.
The 5 ages of parmigiano reggiano predates Osteria Francescana. It has only two ingredients – parmigiano, and time. Mother time does all the telling for this dish – the depth in the taste grows with age, while the 5 consistencies of the cheese counter this. The oldest 50 month cheese is a foam that is fleeting in flavor, while the youngest is in the soufflé that offers the most intense flavor. If you’re wondering 30 is a mousse, 36 is a liquid cream, and 40 is a wafer. The dish is breathtakingly simple yet complex, and captures the essence of the region.
Next is the crunchy part of the lasagna. This dish is painstakingly made, not at all like making a lasagna. It is made of 3 types of colorful spaghetti – green is with herbs, yellow is with parmigiano, and red is with tomato – cooked al dente and then each blended, before being rolled out to create a long Italian flag. This ‘dough’ is then baked and dehydrated, followed by a fry and a smoking, before lastly being torched to create the flavor and crunchy texture of lasagna. The bolognese sauce is mostly from cuts with high gelatin, avoiding fat for a clean palate, while the bechamel comes in a foam. The dish is exactly like how it is advertised – imagine if you took the best parts of lasagna – the cream, crispy corner, and a hearty ragu – and made it a dish. It’s peak lasagna. The joys of eating this dish reminded me of why it was my favorite pasta during my childhood. The texture of the lasagna was like eating a very airy shrimp chip, probably even better than any lasagna corner honestly.
The main course of the evening is called “Beautiful, psychedelic, spin painted veal, charcoal grilled with glorious colors as a painting”. It is inspired by contemporary artist Damien Hirst’s spin paintings, in which the canvas rotates at a high speed as paint is applied. The dish’s thesis is an exercise in fast and slow, inspired by a visit to Burger King to see Hirst’s art. It takes from Italian fast food – Tuscan grilled meats – but is actually slow cooked for days, deceptively first marinated in smoked oil and covered in the ashes of herbs and vegetables to mimic the flavor of grilled meat. Lastly, each color is a reduction of the side garnished typically served with the meat – beets, potatoes, peppers, herbs, and sauces. At the start, I tried to analyze every flavor of the sauces separately, but I gave up and decided to just follow blindly. The sauces, all sweet, came together like a garden medley of sweetness. The veal, so young yet resilient, perfectly encapsulates the contradiction between fast and slow. It was a confusing dish, but in a wonderful way.
The Caesar salad in bloom is inspired by the Caesar salad, and literally love. The dish originates from a date with Laura at the NY four seasons where they were served a Caesar salad, but has evolved since joining the menu into a reflection of chef’s love for Laura. The flowers and aromatic herbs come from their garden, a vinaigrette from elderflower was specially made for the occasion, as well as a syrup from chamomile and a perfume from distilled violet leaves, elderflower and bergamot. The dish was beautiful but probably the weirdest thing I ate that night; it just didn’t make sense to me in terms of flavors. It was no longer a Caesar salad except they were both salads I suppose. I smelled the floral components as it was being served, as if I was in a fresh garden, but eating flowers isn’t the same pleasant experience. The serving order was weird too, accompanying the main course but it wasn’t dessert either. Outside of floral notes, the sweet elderflower vinaigrette was at the heart of the lettuce.
For dessert, we had the signature. The story goes that one night, Massimo’s sous chef Taka dropped the lemon tart by accident. At that moment of panic, Massimo saw something special: a beautiful imperfection in an otherwise perfect dessert, allegorical to southern Italy. The dish is thus an ode to imperfection, celebrating its beauty and embracing the unexpected. Gastronomically, was it better to serve the tart this way than like a normal tart? I think so. This is because structural integrity is no longer a concern, allowing the team to use more liquid sauces. The shell was also replaced into a thin biscuit, which played a lesser component in the dessert. These were welcome changes that further emphasized the beautiful lemons of southern Italy.
I’ll keep the last dish, surprise surprise, a surprise :’)
Flavor: 10
Quality: 10
Value: 6
Setting and service: +4
Presentation: +5
Legitimacy/creativity: +5
Misc: +5
Total: 95 (highest recommendation)
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