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Short version: if you have never visited a restaur...
Short version: if you have never visited a restaurant offering more than a mixed vegetable plate for vegetarians Montali will show you that there are more ways to get your greens in. If you think that the pairing of wine from an oak barrel and light, vegetarian kitchen is great Montali has it. If you think Sacher is just an Austrian version of a really dry brownie: Go ahead. For all the people that do not agree to more than at least one of this statements: carry on reading, because this may save you from disappointment and wasting your money.
I ve been a vegetarian since I was 12 years old. So as we don t want to go into details how long ago this was, I want to reassure you: It s been a remarkable while. Luckily, thesedays you can choose between many different types of restaurants and can be sure, that you don t have to go home hungry being a vegetarian - at least in Germany.
What I want to stress by saying this: When you promote yourself as a restaurant and hotel with a reputation that is well known not only all around Italy, but also internationally - than you should be able to compete with restaurants all around Italy and internationally .
When we arrived at Montali it seemed to be the relaxing place we had looked for. Ok, letting your guests meet your barking dog first and make them sit with an undrinkable wine for half an hour before showing them their room after a day in the car made me think that the attitude of this place might be a bit too relaxed for me. Alberto, the owner of Montali serves the meals and recommends full-bodied wines for a full-bodied menu and also gives you good advice how to improve your English skills without asking. Thanks.
There are also two girls with poor skills in both English and serving in a restaurant I m fully confident Alberto could help them if he s done with teaching paying customers. But let s leave this behind and talk about the highly praised food.
The first dish was a whole caramelized onion in a shop-bought puff pastry. With three rocket leaves which I will not withhold from you. Eatable but everything I would have thrown in the oven in 20 minutes after 12 hours at work would have turned out better.
I would have chosen a medium dry wine, maybe some Riesling from Moselle to match with the sweet of the onion if I had had the opportunity: but we had the recommended red wine from an oak barrel. Thanks, Alberto.
The second dish was stuffed pasta. Finally. Gorgonzola in the pasta. Burrata on it. You have questions about that combination? After 8 weeks I still have not figured it out yet.
Again: a glass of white wine would have been the better optio. The main dish was very creative at least if you judge by the amount of colors on the plate. The absolute highlight in my opinion was however the dessert which was promoted as the famous Sacher but turned out as a really dry chocolate cake or kind of brownie and was accompanied by a mint ice cream which tasted very similar to my toothpaste. And yes, if you wonder: I have eaten clearly more Sacher than such bad brownies in my life. The evening ended with coffee not what one would expect in an Italian restaurant, but some kind of mocha coffee. No espresso or cappuccino.
Which leads me to the breakfast. What we got were two slices of obviously not homemade bread, two slices of one cheese (and no one asked for refill), a kind of cornetto which also was obviously bought and heated up in the oven and a buckwheat pancake that reminded in consistence and taste (ok, this IS a an assumption) more of filler.
However, to make a long story short: We decided to leave this place immediately after breakfast and would not recommend it to anyone who has at least a bit of experience with (vegetarian) food. But: if you don t feel disturbed by leftovers of cats and dogs and want to combine average food with poor wine recommendations and some free English lessons this could be an option for you.
