Le Calandre - Rubano
A modern, minimalist dining room
Rating: 18/20
Where: Rubano, Italy
When: Dinner for 2 on 21 September 2022
Cost: Tasting menu 295 Euro, Wine Pairing 150 Euro
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars, #10 on Top 50 Restaurants list (2022)
Why: Excellent modern Italian food, lots of tasting menu options, great relaxed service
Le Calandre is located in a suburb of Padua - the drive from downtown Padua takes around 15 minutes, and Venice is about 45 minutes away. The dining room is modern with wide, wooden tables. We were seated in a smaller room (with five tables) adjacent to the main dining room. As reservations go, this restaurant seemed to be one of the easier three-stars to reserve in Italy. Maybe due to its relatively large size, being off the beaten tourist track, or not being associated with a luxury hotel? It was definitely not due to a lack of quality, as we were about to see.
When we sat down, a pair of parmesan crackers was already perched on our table: one cracker seasoned with tomatoes, the other with turmeric. They were fine, but very light and nothing too special 15. Also on the table were an assortment of crackers, some with cheese, some with nuts, and overall great to snack on 16.
For our dinner, we were able to choose from no fewer than three tasting menus, all different, but of the same length and the same price. Each tasting menu had three courses where one had to choose between two alternatives, so there were quite a number of dishes on all menus combined. It's also possible to order a la carte by picking 3-5 dishes from any of the three tasting menus. We went for the "Classic" tasting menu in order to try the restaurant's most famous dish, its risotto. Usually, the whole table has to order the same tasting menu, but by requesting a pescatarian menu for one of us, we were able to try dishes across all three tasting menus. Wine pairings were offered at 150 Euro for five glasses, and it was possible to make the pairing Italian only, which I went for. The wines were generally very good, and were topped off several times. Probably not a perfect match for the food, but a good accompaniment nonetheless.
Three bites from the kitchen arrived soon thereafter. A mini-tartlet filled with a tuna sauce and an eggplant reduction was a bit too heavy on the cracker for my liking, with the sauce almost disappearing in relation 16. A parmesan cracker was much better, essentially as good as a pure parmesan cracker can get, with just the right balance between crunchiness and lightness 19. Lastly, an anchovy-shaped crispy pasta didn't contain any actual anchovy, but was topped with onions and black olives instead. Similar to the tartlet, the chewy pasta was too substantial relative to its toppings 14.
A warm wheat bread had a great crunch and went wonderfully with the supplied olive oil 16.
Course #1 from our tasting menu was called "Fu Mare", a taste of the sea. A bowl held several seafood ingredients: mackerel, caviar, tuna ice cream and bottarga. The result was delicious, with a great seafood flavor 18 (my dining companion - my mother - voted for a more generous 19).
A "murrina cappuccino" arrived next. Visually striking, its look was inspired by the Murano glass crafted in nearby Venice. For the most part, this dish consisted of potato cream. It also contained some cuttlefish and uni, and was colored with black cuttlefish ink, beetroot, and spinach. I couldn't really taste the uni, but the cuttlefish was cooked to a soft perfection, making this a lovely potato/seafood puree. I only wish it had been served warmer than lukewarm 18+ (20 from my mother).
Next, a trio of Italian food staples. A cannoli was filled with cheese; a dollop of burrata was served with olive oil; a pastry pillow was filled with pesto. Next to them was a tomato dipping sauce, mostly meant for the cannoli. Great tomato and pesto flavors as well as excellent cheeses, but this felt more like an amuse bouche assortment rather than a full-fledged third course 18 (mom: 19).
For unknown reasons, the pescatarian menu didn't include this Italian food sampler. Instead, we received a pair of toasted pizza slices topped with smoked salmon and salmon cream. A lovely salmon, but the "pizza" was merely a nice cracker 18 (mom: 20).
Tagliolini (a long pasta slightly thicker than spaghetti) was served with hen meat, speck, mushrooms and eggs, some of them smoked - pretty similar to a spaghetti carbonara. Next to it was a smoked mushroom broth. All very lovely, perfectly cooked, and quite rustic for a three-star restaurant 18+.
The pescatarian alternative was a dish of ravioli filled with spider crab meat, artichokes and plums. The pasta dough was extremely thin, letting the great crab flavor shine 18.
Next came the restaurant's signature dish, the saffron risotto. It incorporated licorice powder, lime, cream and veal broth. We were handed a numbered card saying that the risotto was inspired by a statue in the Uffizi in Florence, and the card also had a QR code for a video of the chef preparing the risotto. This dish was indeed lovely, the rice al dente, the preparation not too creamy, and a little bit spicy. Maybe not the best risotto I've ever had, but pretty darn good 19.
Due to the veal broth, the risotto sadly was a no-show on the pescatarian menu. Instead, we received calamari-shaped pasta seasoned with lemons, cuttlefish liver, cuttlefish ink and cream. I loved the sauce, and the pasta was cooked a tad harder than a dente. Interestingly (and probably intentionally), the result actually tasted a bit like real calamari rings 18.
The first of two meat courses followed. I chose a beef tartare served with truffles, a salad leaf, a semolina flour bread and mayonnaise. (The other option would have been a dish based on bone marrow.) Surprisingly (and messily) the dish was served without any utensils - instead I received only a hand towel - for cleaning up afterwards. This was a fine dish, but far from the best beef tartare I've had. The beef didn't have too much flavor and provided more texture than taste. The sauce could have been livened up with a bit more acidity. And I didn't understand how this dish was supposed to be improved by forgoing the utensils 17.
On the pescatarian side of our table, a fried spider crab was served with a small salad and a fig cocktail. The crab was excellent with great seasoning, the salad very good with some sesame oil, only the fig juice was a bit of an outlier - I'm not sure what it was doing in this dish 18.
Venison was served with a piece of mozzarella, broccoli rabe, a vegetable mille-feuille and truffles. The mozzarella didn't really taste of much, but the mille-feuille was wonderfully flavorful, the deer cooked to perfection and with (seemingly) a delicious crust of cheese. Really, really good 18+.
The final savory pescatarian dish was a sole, served with a sweet potato mousse, beetroots, radicchio and capers. The mousse might have been a tad too sweet, but the rest of the dish was excellent. Perfectly cooked fish, with some bitterness from the radicchio and acidity from the capers 18.
An optional cheese course came with three cheeses. I had asked for bold, flavorful, "stinky" cheeses, but the cheeses that arrived were quite tame. The cheese cart from the main dining room never made it over to our table, so I was not able to pick the individual cheeses. Probably safe to skip.
Some fruit slices on sticks were served before the desserts. Melons, plums and figs were all seasoned and pleasant enough 17.
There were two choices for the dessert on the tasting menu, and we ordered one of each. The first was an almond sorbet with a tuile and some inedible twigs of herbs. The almond liquor flavor was quite overwhelming on my first bite, almost to an unpleasant degree. Other than that and the odd twigs, this was an ok dessert 16.
The other dessert consisted of variations on chocolate, hazelnut and coffee. It was very light for a chocolate-based dessert, and very lovely 18 (mom: 19).
Three final bites concluded our dinner. A crispy cannelloni was filled with a very nice vanilla ice cream 17. A tartlet was topped with rice, chocolate and vanilla - unfortunately, the wafer reminded me of a cheap ice cream cone 15. An almond-shaped piece of marzipan seasoned with coffee was pretty good, the marzipan quite rustic with pieces of almond skin 16.
Overall: An excellent dinner of modern Italian food with few complaints. The service was very good and friendly all throughout, a nice contrast to the more reserved interactions that we had experienced on the previous nights. If I lived closer, I'd definitely take the opportunity to try the other two tasting menus 18.
