On a recent road trip to the Veneto region of Italy, Pete and I decided to spend a few days in a city neither of us had been to before: Padova, or as English speakers call it, Padua. Padova claims to be the oldest city in northern Italy and is said to have been founded in 1183 BC by Antenor, a Trojan prince. In 1274, authorities are said to have found a sarcophagus in the city centre and declared that it contained remains of Antenor.
While I’m not sure if Antenor really was found in the sarcophagus, I do know that Padova is home to the first female university graduate in the world, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1678). She graduated from the second oldest university in Italy (after Bologna), the University of Padova, which was established in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. Galileo Galilei held the chair of mathematics at the university between 1592 and 1610. Imagine having Galileo Galilei as your lecturer. I’m sure that would have been one heck of an astronomy class!
There will be other posts on what we saw in Padova, but this post is about a lovely dinner we had at one of the oldest “taverns” in town, Osteria dal Capo. I came across this restaurant thanks to the fabulous blog of Luca Marchiori, Chestnuts and Truffles. It is also a recommendation of the Slow Food Osteria d’Italia guide.
The story goes that Osteria dal Capo was started by a tram driver around 1936. There used to be a tram line which ran through the city centre and would stop at the Duomo. The tram driver retired and started this restaurant at the site of the Duomo stop. Good move, I guess, as the tram line is gone, but the restaurant endures. The restaurant is also near the Jewish quarter and is a convenient spot for lunch or dinner.
Pete and I were lucky enough to get a table (we booked ahead) at the roughly 40-seat restaurant one summer night. The tables were filled the entire night with a combination of locals, families, and travelers. This is clearly a local favourite spot as people walking in were greeted by name.
The menu is simply set out under the headings antipasti, primi, secondi and dolce. The servers were friendly and let us know what the specials were that day, as well as the fact that all pastas were made in-house. Gleda and Rosalea were very helpful in describing the local specialties.
Huge bonus points: Padova is located in the Veneto region and Osteria dal Capo offers Prosecco by the 1/4 litre (€4), 1/2 litre (€7) and 1 litre (€14)! This may become my favourite place. They also have a Chardonnay, a Rabosello (a slightly fizzy Veneto rosé) and a Cabernet as their house wines, all available by the 1/4, 1/2 or 1 litre.
While we contemplated the menu with our Prosecco in hand, the servers brought out crostini with olive spread. We decide to opt for some interesting local dishes.
- Tortino alle melanzane sulla passata da pomodoro. This light flavourful flan is a house specialty. It is made of ricotta and Parmigiano-Reggiano with eggplant. Pete does not like eggplant but declared this delicious, a win!
- Bigioli con ragu di farone. Bigioli is a local pasta. It reminded me of the Umbrian Pici, but slightly thinner. Sauce choices were farone (guinea fowl), coniglio (rabbit) or anatra (duck). The sauce was delicious, not too heavy and the pasta was cooked perfectly.
- Gnocchi di ricotta di Borgoforte al pesto di rucola e sfilacci di cavallo. This was an interesting local dish. The gnocchi were tossed in pesto made of arugula and then topped by a very fine sfilacci di cavallo (which is smoked pulled horse meat from the local market).
- Coniglio in doppo cottura. This dish was cooked rabbit (super lean, environmentally sustainable and quite mild) and served with house pickled giardiniera (mixed vegetables) which complimented the roast rabbit.
- Tortino di cioccolata con pepperoncini e pera. We were going to pass on dessert, but in the interest of TravelFoodCool readers, decided to try their most popular dessert. A warm chocolate cake with bites of pear inside and a hint of spice to the chocolate. It was a sweet end to a lovely meal.
Next time around, hopefully, we will be in season, so we can try Gleda’s favourite dish: la mousse di cachi con crema di castagne fegato alla Veneziana – Venetian-style liver with chestnut cream and persimmon mousse.
Gleda (front of the house) and Michele (the chef) have been with the Osteria for over 10 years and, in 2011, bought the restaurant from the retiring owners. Gleda and Michele, as well as Ronal (sous chef) and Rosalea, go out of their way to make sure that everyone has a lovely meal in their little piece of Padova history.
Where: Via degli Obizzi, 2, Padova, Veneto, IT – osteriadalcapo@libero.it – Tel. 049 663105; When: Monday 19:00 – 22:30; Tuesday to Saturday 12:30 -14:30, 19:00 – 22:30; Closed Sunday
So glad you seem to have enjoyed the meal as much as I did. In fact, we even sat at the same table and tried some of the same dishes. Lovely post and thanks for the shout out.
My pleasure! Thank you for the recommendation!