Jul 10, 2006

The Restaurant La Giostra is Fun, and the Food is Delicious.

We were looking for a great place to have dinner in Florence, and we didn't want to take any chances. A friendly tourist recommended La Giostra, and our concierge verified that this would be an excellent choice for fine dining. That's all we needed to hear; a reservation for our party of five was made in short order.

What we didn't know until we were seated and read the menu, was the interesting history behind La Giostra. Believe it or not, this restaurant is owned by real live Austrian royalty, who also are active presences in the kitchen and wine cellar. We thought this was pretty neat. Also neat was that our waiter told us, almost conspiratorially, that Sting had sat at our table the night before. Poor Sting! A renown vegetarian, he missed out on some of the best steak carpaccio in the world.

The menu reflects the subtle Austrian influences on some of the entrees. The food here is basically Tuscan, however. When we ordered one particular Tuscan wine, there was a bit of a stir: Apparently, that red wine is rare and restaurants throughout the world are only allotted 7 or so bottles per year. This was enough for us to get a special table-side visit from the sommelier, a joyful man in a floppy chef's hat.

The happy man in the chef's hat who was thrilled with our wine selection, is the blue-blooded Hapsburg prince. Prince Dimitri Kunz d'Asburgo Lorena created and now runs La Giostra in Florence, with his adult sons' active participation. He was very engaging and happily told us the origins of the special entrees we had ordered. The Austrian influences of the Hapsburg prince are reflected in the creative and subtle introduction of some Austrian cooking with the traditional Italian style of most entrees. He was quite entertaining but didn't overstay his welcome. After a show of oxygenating and decanting our wine in the sommelier way, he graciously accepted our thanks (not to mention a glass of wine for himself!) and moved on to the next table. His mood was contagious, and we spend the rest of our evening exclaiming passionately over the high quality of our food and wine.

The sacher torte and tiramisu were the perfect dessert to end one of the best meals the five of us had ever had. We were still talking about La Giostra all the way back to our hotels.