Marano di Valpolicella

We went out for dinner for the first time at a little family run trattoria in the center of the village of Negrar. Obviously it has the best name ever. Even if Andrea is a dude’s name in Italy. We’d made a reservation yesterday during the market. The man, who had long grey hair, told us to come back today at 7:30. So tonight we parked in the middle of Negrar on the main road that leads to the church and walked to the restaurant that is tucked behind it. There were literally no lights on. We thought it was closed but then the door opened and the man appeared and he motioned with his hand for us to enter. He took us to a back area near the kitchen out of the main dining room (which is small! Maybe six tables??). There are two tables in this second area. One has an old man sitting at it and he’s drinking water. We were delighted with our table. Squeals and other baby noises won’t bother so many guests and we can relax. The cameriere (waiter) lists the first and second course options and we have to choose! Mom and I ordered the tagliatelle with beef sauce (no tomato or butter or olive oil—not sure what all was in it other than probably some wine?). Michael orders these dumplings made of bread, egg, spinach, grano padano, and some sausage. Then after the waiter goes to the kitchen to get our orders in (we believe only his wife was in the kitchen cooking) we realize we didn’t order Annika any food. Oops. So we order tagliatelle, but only with butter. She’s afraid of sauce. But then ours comes out and she tries it and loves it so we fortunately had time to switch her order to the meat sauce version. Michael ordered a second course of rabbit and polenta. The sauce was a carrot, onion butter concoction. Excellent. Poor Michael is dying trying to be polite and remove meat from tiny bones with his knife and fork. The waiter says “I usually eat rabbit with my hands”. What a polite way to let Michael know it was cool to just grab that thing and gnaw the meat off. I tried the meat. It was excellent. I think we have to go back.Read more