Everybody's Meeting at the Tratts!

It is a 21st century restaurant now, all wood, glass, and granite, with a show kitchen where a brick-based Italforni oven bakes oak-flavoured pizzas. But one wall is devoted to medieval Italy. Or is it Spain? The Trattoria got Chicago-based designer Hersh Bedner to do wall-paper depicting the homecoming of a king. It stretches from end of the restaurant to the other and adds as much character to Trattoria as does the rack of Italian wines and the tins of pureed tomato and packets of Dececco pasta. Happily, the new menu is 21st century too. Ananda has done away with the old lunch and dinner menu and the 24-hour menu and replaced them with a single one that does not restrict your order of food. "No pulling out one menu to replace it with another," he explains. "You can order a Pizza Americana at 3 o'clock in the morning at Trattoria and it will be served to you." I am planning to do just that one night for the experience of eating pizza at that hour.

Before I tell you what Trattoria's signature dishes are like on the new menu, briefly, let me fill you in on the cheese, pasta and rice at the restaurant. They use Mozzarella for the pizzas and Parmesan for the soups and cooking. It is Grande Padano Parmesan Cheese that has been matured like a good wine for 12 years to get out its full flavour. Ananda tells me the Trattoria imports it directly from Sallerno which is to the north of Naples. The pasta is Dececco, it is made of wholewheat flour and comes packaged specially for Trattoria. Dececco is a household name in Italy, probably like our Postman, and the Trattoria orders pasta in spaghetti, farfelle, fusilli, penne and rigatoni forms. The rice is arborio of Italy. It is not washed but cooked directly. "People are cranky about the risotto," says Ananda, "It must taste like the last time they had it!" The menu has just two risottos. The recommended one is the risotto with mixed seafood, white wine, garlic chips, herbs, plain tomato and Parmesan. The risotto is sauteed in a little butter and then the wine is gradually stirred in.

I will now give you Trattoria's signature dishes. Top of the list is the Brick-roasted Spring Chicken. The bricks are from an Italian bhatti that Trattoria imported. It is a tedious process to prepare this dish. The marination takes 24 hours. The chicken is marinated in white wine, then cooked in olive oil, garlic, rosemary and celery. In 20 minutes' cooking time, the dish is ready. It is served with shallots in its own juices, the gravy of the roast, a thick brown-black sauce. The brick-baking process tenderises the bird so that your knife slices through like butter. Then there is a fish that is the speciality of the month at Trattoria. Sometime ago it was trout, currently it is tuna, I understand they are getting Dover sole next. The tuna is done as a grilled steak. This is a delicacy. The fish is not overcooked nor undercooked. The marination is simple. White wine sauce and lemon butter. Italians strongly believe in marinating their fish, meat and chicken. They have no garam masalas to lend support. And with a limited repertoire, what improvisations carry out with their food!

I will recommend the Venetian pork chops as well. Ananda says they are like Amul butter. Very soft and fibre free. The chops are marinated with olive oil, pepper, salt and thyme and kept floating like that for 24 hours. Yes, like the chicken. �I tell the Trattoria kitchen, you must plan 36 hours in advance for what you want to do in the next 24 hours! Otherwise you won't have 100 per cent satisfied guests," says Ananda. Have the pork chops, plan to go there 36, 48 hours hence, and I assure you, you will be 100 per cent satisfied. If you do not eat pork, then there is a Penne Prawn Vodka, a very subtly flavoured dish. Yes, there is Russian vodka in this dish, and if the Russians are not complaining, nor the Italians, then why should you! The prawns are lightly marinated in fresh cream, tomato and garlic. The vodka is added almost like a baghar.

When I go to Trattoria, I do not eat the pizza. That's because I plan to do so after I exhaust the rest of the menu. But you please go ahead. There are 18 pizzas. The one to have, of course, is the Pizza Americana. It is American pepperoni, spicy Italian sausage, and the dough with its tomato content and cheese... the Pizza Margherita base. This is the fastest moving pizza at Trattoria. One Sunday brunch I was there, they sold 196 Pizza Americanas. I was almost tempted to order one myself. Those are the mainstays of Trattoria. I would suggest the Antipasti platter as a starter instead of a soup before you order anything else. This is Ananda's special tray of veg. and non-veg. starters. It is enough for a table of four. And you must end your meal with a dessert from the showcase. Five per cent of the Trattoria's entire sales come out of the contents of this small showcase. My favourite is the Cappuccino Tart. Place your order for this in between your meal because it takes about 12 minutes to bake. It is a coffee and chocolate tart served with cashewnut ice-cream. Eating time: 60 seconds!