Trussardi has a formal dining room upstairs and a cafe downstairs. It is well located, the dining room having a fine view over the Piazza Scala. The room is modern and very red: red walls, red floor, red upholstery, with just the white tablecloths and ceiling as a contrast. Jazz played in the background.
The tasting menu was EUR 140. As you browse the menu a bowl of vegetable crisps appears. The wine list runs over 38 pages and includes choices such as Penfolds Bin 707 1997 at EUR 210 for a wine that costs around EUR 75 retail, Antinori Tignanello 2005 at EUR 100 for a wine you can buy in the shops for around EUR 43, and Jermann Dreams 2020 at EUR 75 for a wine that costs about EUR 37 to purchase retail. Bread was a choice of white, brown or Maldon salt bread rolls, all of which had good texture (16/20).
A nibble of "spaghetti" seaweed was very salty, served with tuna roe and a intense little chilled tomato juice; I found the texture rather firm, but the main problem was the very strong saltiness, even for seaweed (14/20). Better was a paste made from black olives and ricotta, then deep fried; the flavours combined well and this had a nice, crisp exterior (16/20).
I began with a very prettily presented dish of scallops with Jerusalem artichokes, cream of Xeres vinegar and a marshmallow of beetroot. The latter was unusual but worked OK, the scallops were excellent and the vinegar cream provided a welcome contrast to the slight sweetness of the beetroot marshmallow; seasoning was excellent (17/20).
For my main dish I had a classic risotto Milanese with calf sweetbreads. The risotto was remarkably good, every grain of rice in place, flecked with little red strands of saffron, the rice having lovely depth of flavour from the stock and the saffron flavour avoiding the metallic taste that can come through; the sweetbreads were soft and tasty, the seasoning was spot on (19/20). A pre-dessert of frozen chocolate mousse with rum granita had lovely granita, but the chocolate mousse was a little hard in texture, and perhaps would have been better without being frozen (16/20).
Steamed pear was served on a hazelnut biscuit and surrounded by rich chocolate sauce. This was very good, though for me the pear would have been better poached as it lacked the sweetness that poaching in syrup would have given (16/20). A wide selection of petit fours included jellied fruits, biscuits, chocolates, tuiles and marshmallow (17/20), while coffee itself had deep flavour. Service was capable, if not warm.
The bill was EUR 122, including three glasses of wine.
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Our recent visit had some ups and downs. The location of the restaurant is very good, right on the La Scala Piazza. The interior is now white, looks modern and clean. Instead of of a tasting menu which we found to be not really exciting, we went a la carte. Raw prawn and turbot were good, tuna belly a little to heavy and I found the lobster not grilled enough with a fishy taste. Service was the worst part of the evening. We were often asked whether we are finished and felt like we have to eat and drink fast. At the end we were charged for a bottle of water we never had, quite common in Milan as the same happened to us earlier that day, so check your bill before you pay.
Richard
Yeah, I went there a few years ago and was pleasantly surprise by the quality of cuisine there. Glad you had a great meal there as well.
Food Snob
The food looks sooo pretty!! Taken with the new camera?