Michelin Stars and Rossellinis

Do you know where the Michelin restaurant star rating system came from?  I didn’t, until I started researching this trip.  Michelin, the tire company that uses the Stay-Puft marshmallow man as a spokesperson, used to put out a guidebook for people on road trips.  This was back in the days when the internet wasn’t even a real word yet.  In the guidebook, they’d list all of the restaurants that you could stop at along your travels.  I remember going on family road trips in the 80’s and using the AAA guidebook in the same way.  But apparently the folks at Michelin took it one step further.  They started rating restaurants.  Any restaurant with at least one Michelin star is worth going to.  It’s not like Yelp, where a roach coach can get a star.  A one Michelin star restaurant is likely a better restaurant than you’ve been to in the past year, possibly better than you’ve ever been to.

My travel partner, Cristina, decided that, since we were in Italy, where food is life and life is food, we should go to a Michelin starred restaurant.  After agreeing and then doing some research, I talked her down from the 3-star restaurant that she wanted and agreed to go to a 1-star restaurant.  My wallet was twitching, just thinking about the cost of the 3-star.  Based on some of the articles I’d read, a meal at a 3-star restaurant could cost $400 per person or more, before alcohol.  As you may have figured out, I like my drink, and what is a good meal without good booze?  So, in an effort to save myself a major hit to the wallet that would probably eclipse my mortgage payment, I talked her down to a 1-star.  Fortunately for us (or maybe we planned it this way), there was one in Ravello, just a short walk from where we are staying.

Rossellinis is tucked away in the Palazzo Avino hotel, just off the main square in Ravello.  From the start, I was impressed.  I want to throw in a quick word about the dress code.  Gentlemen, you’ll see that they want you to wear a sportcoat.  I took a blazer and I was more dressed up than most of the other guests.  If you don’t need to bring one on your travels for some other reason, don’t bother packing one.  A nice shirt and decent pants (I wore nice jeans and a polo under the blazer), and you’ll be fine.  Don’t pack a sportcoat just for this.  (That’s the end of my dress code complaint.)  The staff was attentive and friendly and offered suggestions on the menu based on our preferences.  We told the sommelier what we liked in wines (Cristina likes drier wines, I prefer the sweet stuff) and he said that he could pair each course for us based on that.  I will have to post later about the details of the meal, but suffice it to say that the food was awesome.  I totally understand why it’s rated as it is, and I do not regret the expense in the least.  I do, however, need to mention the music.

There were 2 musicians playing live music, one on the guitar and one on the mandolin.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen one before in real life.  A mandolin, that is.  I’ve seen musicians before.  The only reference I have to a mandolin is from the movie El Dorado, and that’s not a great point of reference, since it’s a cartoon.  But these guys kicked ass with their performance and played some great stuff.  A lot of it was old school, quiet, fancy dining music.  But once in a while, they’d slip in some pop music, like Yolanda Be Cool’s “We No Speak Americano,” possibly for their own enjoyment.  They snuck it in there, and it took us a minute to catch on, but it was fantastic.  It was hard to recognize because it was being played on instruments it clearly wasn’t designed for, but once you found it, it was there, clear as day.  I think they appreciated the fact that we were actually listening to the music and not treating it as background noise like most of the other patrons appeared to be doing.  After a few rounds of drinks, I did what I always do, and I requested “Mack The Knife.”  They didn’t recognize the name of the song, but once I started singing, the mandolin player started humming with me.  The guitar player shoved his guitar at the mandolin player in a move that said, “Fine, smartass.  You play the damn song.”  (That gesture transcended the language barrier between us.)  And he did.  The mandolin player played that guitar and nailed “Mack The Knife” well enough to impress Sinatra himself.  It was amazing.  I don’t know much about music, and I can’t play a tune to save my life.  But I know what I like, and the guys at Rossellinis are very talented and seem to really enjoy their work.  I wouldn’t suggest that their skills are worth the cost of the meal, but if you go there for dinner, turn an ear towards the music.  You won’t be disappointed.