I
t’s a feeling we encounter almost daily: choosing one path at the expense of another, and then (almost immediately after deciding) wondering where that other turn might have led. It happens in traffic. It happens in life. And it happens here, too. So a month and change after beginning this series with Ferran Adrià, who sent us on a path from London to Beijing to Tokyo, I found myself wondering where his other selection—Chef Diego Rossi of Trippa in Milan—might have taken us.
Adrià, like nearly every chef I know, has fallen for Trippa, the trattoria that chef Diego Rossi has run for a decade in the Porta Romana district of Milan. It’s easy to love: polished Art Deco wood paneling, low lighting, decorative floor tiles, the sound of glasses and laughter tuned to the same key as the music.
And the food! Rossi has dusted off recipes that had vanished from Italian tables and, day by day, creates new dishes from whatever arrives freshest in his kitchen: from cockscombs to seasonal, crunchy friarielli. As if that weren’t enough, there’s the vitello tonnato topped with an ethereal foam (yes, modernism lives inside tradition) and the fried tripe, a fitting homage to the restaurant’s name, both borderline addictive. Adrià told me it was one of the best dinners he’s had since closing El Bulli—a statement that carries weight when it comes from someone who helped redefine what a great dinner could be.
