Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia

Il Luogo Aimo e Nadia (“the place of Aimo and Nadia”) was originally a husband-and-wife team, the restaurant opened by Aimo and Nadia Moroni in 1962 in a western suburb of Milan. Aimo Moroni trained as a chef at a restaurant called Restaurant Da Gioacchino before he and his wife opened Aimo e Nadia. It gained a Michelin star in 1980 and a second star in 1990, which it has held ever since.  Since 2005 the original owners handed over cooking to a new generation of chefs, and the kitchen is now headed jointly by two chefs, Allesandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani.  Mr Negrini worked at restaurants including two years at Châteauvieux in Geneva and at Dal Pescatore in Canneto sull’Ogli.  Fabio Pisani trained at Grand Vefour in Paris for three years, Waterside Inn in Bray or two years and Dal Pescatore, where he met his culinary partner Allesandro Negrini.Tasting menus were either €220, €240 or €280. The wine list was extensive, with a wine pairing was available at €180. The restaurant has recently been refurbished, and now features a private dining room and chef’s table. Three tasting menus were available, at €280 €220 and €240, and you can mix and match these and construct a la carte options from these without any fuss.

The very large wine list, with over 1,300 separate labels, was presented on an iPad. We drank a lovely cult Tuscan white wine, Batar Bianco 2002, a blend of Pinot Bianco and Chardonnay), which was listed at €360 for a bottle that sells in a shop for €167, if you could ever actually find it. We also drank Diecianni Brunello di Montalcino 2012 at €350 compared to its retail price of €223. On the list, sample labels included St Clair Sauvignon Blanc Block 3 2021 at €65 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for €21, J.J. Prum Bernkasteler Badstube Spatlese 2018 at €100 compared to its retail price of €60, and Bartolommeo Mascarello Nebbiolo Langhe 2019 at €130 for a wine whose market value is currently €97. For those with the means there were plenty of posh options such as Clos Rougeard Le Bourg 2009 at €750 for a wine that retails at €582 and Rene Rostaing La Landonne 2005 at a hefty €810 for a bottle that will set you back €216 in a wine shop. There was plenty of depth in vintages, with for example that quite hard to find Clos Rougeard Le Bourg available in no less than eight different vintages in bottle and five in magnum. The sommelier was knowledgeable and helpful.

A series of canapés began the meal. Little celery sticks came with a dip of mussel mayonnaise, and although very simple, the celery was unusually good. A miniature baba of carrot and ginger with puffed millet was fine but unremarkable. Better was a buckwheat tartlet of Gorgonzola blue chees, beetroot and miso, which worked a lot better than it sounds. Finally a slice of pineapple marinated in elderflower and wine was pleasant. Salmon trout on a Bleggio buckwheat crisp with lardo di collonata was pleasant but nothing out of the ordinary. Anchovies from Carnogli on a base of “meringue” were made with a sweet wine vinegar. Finally there was a little dish of three different tomatoes and some wild strawberries with extra virgin olive oil and vinegar from barrels of juniper, which sounds weird but featured some lovely tomatoes. These canapés were nice enough but gave little indication of what was to come (average just about 16/20).

The first official course of the menu was a mosaic of pickled vegetables with purple shrimp from Polignano that had just been marinated in Mothia salt and Coratina extra virgin olive oil. The vegetables included Meloncella cucumber, the mosaic composed of celery, watermelon, carrots, shrimp bisque and soft jelly of vinegar and lemon and watermelon to go with a crisp flavoured with seafood bisque and finally a soft lemon and vinegar jelly. What was impressive for me was the very precise amount of vinegar in the pickling, which was just the right amount to balance the natural sweetness of the excellent quality raw prawns 18/20).

This was followed by a little crisp of snapper tartare, a kind of tacos. This was dazzling, the crisp ultra delicate, the fish carefully seasoned and having lovely flavour (19/20). Next was red mullet with chickpeas, smoked Scamorza cheese and violet aubergine with a sweet and sour sauce. Red mullet is either lovely and fresh tasting or muddy, and this was definitely the former. The fish went very well with the chickpeas, another example of how quite humble ingredients can be made to really sing in the right combination (18/20).

A signature dish here is a deceptively simple dish of large spaghetti with onions. The spiral of pasta had perfect texture and the onions were beautifully sweet. This dish was an absolute case study of how to take humble ingredients and make them shine. I mean how good can pasta and onions really be? Try these and find out (19/20). The next dish was “Like an egg”, actually pasta stuffed with herbs including stewed borage, crushed olives from Longobardi, Salva Cremasco cheese and crispy leek. This was very good, the olives in particular being lovely, but it was hard to live up to the previous dish (17/20).

This was followed by a fresh pasta made in the kitchen stuffed with two different cheeses (marscapone and burrata), served with a tomato sauce using tomatoes from Apulia in the heel of southern Italy. Again, this was a dish that relied on superb ingredients, and the tomatoes in particular were fabulous (18/20). 

Next was a tribute to carnaroli rice. This was not quite a conventional risotto as it was not thickened with Parmesan. Here the rice was cooked with a seafood stock using a bisque made from shrimp from San Remo, with Russo gallo rice that had been aged for a year. The dish was completed with a sauce of tomatoes from Puglia. I can hardly describe just how fabulous this tasted, the rice having glorious texture, the tomato sauce dazzling, the stock beautifully reflected in the rice. This is up there with the best rice dishes in the world (20/20).

The main course was quail from the village of Miroglio in Piedmont, stuffed with herbs and prunes and served with a tart of carrots and mushrooms with pesto as well as some carrots. The quail was garnished with a lardo di colonatta from noted producer Fausto Guadagni in Carrara. The quail itself was remarkably good, superbly cooked, yet the humble carrots were every bit as good, having stunning flavour (19/20).

Pre dessert was a little chocolate bonbon flavoured with vermouth, having a rich liquid centre. This was quite rich for a pre dessert but it was lovely (18/20).  The main dessert was a recipe from Puglia, a crisp pastry with almond cream, along with milk jelly and cardamom ice cream. This combination worked really well, and the pastry base was superbly delicate (18/20). Coffee was unusually good, an Ethiopian coffee supplied by a local roaster called Caffe Diemme in Milan. This came with a selection of petit fours. There was a chocolate flavoured with vermouth, liquorice and salt, which sounds odd but the liquorice was mercifully subsided and the chocolate and salt combined well A soft biscuit with almond and lemon was very enjoyable, better than a slightly soggy tartlet of fig with almond milk and orange jam with cardamon ice cream. Coffee was Ethiopian Goroa Bugan and was very good indeed. 

Service was a joy, the staff warm and friendly and positively willing you to have a good time. The manager Nicola has worked here for eighteen years. The bill for two was €1,250 so €625 (£534) each, though that included two bottles of quite serious wine; the Batar 2002 white in particular was dazzling. If you instead just shared a modest bottle then a typical price per person might come to around €340 (£299). Of course this is hardly cheap, and it has to be said that little in the way of luxury ingredients features here. You are eating quail and red mullet and prawns rather than langoustines and truffle and caviar. Nonetheless, the skill in the cooking is exemplary, and the flavours and balance in the dishes are lovely. Aimo e Nadia is an example of just how good humble ingredients can be made to taste. Add in the genuinely charming service and you have a really delightful overall experience.

Further reviews: 03rd Jun 2016 | 01st Mar 2009