Verona, in north east Italy, is normally a magical city. Home to some wonderful churches, museums and once, it would even have us believe, to Romeo and Juliet, its piazzas and narrow cobbled streets are usually a delight to walk through.
But on our last visit it more closely resembled my home town of Manchester. Cloud covered the surrounding hills and it rained so hard and so continuously that the advance lunch booking we had made at Trattoria Al Pompiere (the firemen) seemed like a very wise move.
One friend was in fact so anxious to get there that he called into the restaurant an hour before we were due just to make sure that that there was no confusion with our reservation. When he came out, with two thumbs up, his face was a picture. “If our meal is as good as the staff meal they are just having,” he quipped, “I will be very happy.”
We walked in, therefore, with our hopes high and our trousers and shoes extremely wet and we were not to be disappointed by anything we encountered over the next couple of hours. At which point I could only concur with the table’s overall opinion that Trattoria Al Pompiere is ‘a great restaurant.’
It is not only a great restaurant in terms of the food and wine it serves, as well as the friendliness of all those who work there, but also in terms of its layout. There are two rooms, with a smaller dining room off to the left, but the main room accommodates all the distinctive food features which are there for everyone’s eyes to enjoy before any food is ordered.
Off to the right is what can only be described as ‘pig corner.’ On the shelves of the far wall are numerous salamis and hams waiting to be sliced and in front of these is a large counter which holds a large, red meat slicer. Behind this for the entire time we sat there stood a jolly, rotund elderly chef whose job was to slice the various orders for prosciutto, mortadella, lardo, coppa and culatello. But what this chef really enjoys are brief his forays from behind his counter, carrying large platters of ham in his hand and explaining the different cuts and flavours to his guests.
Pigs account for a large proportion of the menus in this region (there are even a couple of photos of them in the restaurant’s lavatory) and so does cheese. And, just across from our jolly ham slicer is an equally large table holding a vast array of local cheeses. Behind this counter are shelves of wine books, a sign of the restaurateur’s other passion. Any remaining space on these two counters is given over to boxes of large bottles of wine and objects, helmets, hoses, and straps relating to the far more dangerous world of the fireman.
One other factor makes this restaurant special. Its walls are covered in a seemingly random collection of black and white photos that share a very special theme – all the subjects are connected in some particular way with Verona. As you sit down to eat, a panoply of the city’s citizens, some as babies, many older and the one facing me a topless, well built man on a horse, look down on you.
And no sooner have you sat down than something else quite unusual happens – a chef in whites comes to take your order. While waiters deliver the food, a young chef patrols the room to counterbalance the other chef delivering the plates of ham.
But judging by what we ate there are obviously equally talented chefs in the kitchen. We began with a plate of the hams, which together with the cheeses occupy two of the menu’s four pages, then moved on to two distinctive pastas: bigoli, a short curly pasta served al dente with a sardine sauce and spaghetti with melted cheese and Sarawak pepper, followed by beef tagliata, slices of beef fillet, and pungent salt cod with creamy polenta.
With two desserts, a couple of very good glasses of white recommended by the chef, and a half bottle of 2001 Valpolicella from Anselmi, the bill came to 111 euros. By which time our shoes were almost dry.
