scarletpimpernel
Google
what to say about a restaurant that has one of the most exciting and theatrical space, almost a stage, in the world? it reminds me philippe stark's the lan in beijing, for size, geniality, beauty, and lack of substance.
everything in the matarazzo city is awesome. the rosewood hotel with its restaurants and bar, in gorgeous spaces, great service and poor food. the tuscan gardens, the chapel, the olive trees, the cypresses. the casa bradesco cultural center with a great book shop almost only devoted to coffee table books, where the ratio between stage and substance is way more equilibrate. the boulevard where artisanal producers of food show their great cheeses, wine, biscuits, icecreams, scents and perfumes and so on, in funny and charming little gazebos. the mata lab, a multi brand space who learned its lesson from 10 corso como in milan. the lab is a concept store that sells trends, innovation, a lot of smoke and mirrors and gorgeous new fashion, mixing mythical brands and fascinating newcomers. like the extinct barney's NY did.
everything is shabby chic in the matarazzo city, a concept I really dig. the ex-italian hospital, which has been closed forever, is a triumph of tuscan country style meets renaissance style. both joined by jean nouvel and philippe stark's newly built rosewood hotel. the restoration of the old buildings and the industrial/garage/ultramodern/shabby-chic/town and country approach, in refurbishing the whole internal and external areas, really works for me. it has a colefax and fowler gone rogue flair.
it is really worth your time for strolling, relaxing, drinking, buying.
eating, not so much.
but back specifically to the mata città restaurant. unfortunately I have very little to say about the food in positive terms. I sincerely hope the restaurant will reach, in time, at least 1/5 of the worth of the whole happening. this would be enough to have great food. instead we have an organoleptic experience that goes from the embarrassing to the quite frankly revolting.
I don't want to detail my party's unfortunate food experience, because the rest of the experience beyond food, is so gorgeous that I'm eager to go back there, in time, and be surprised to discover the food turned to honesty, at least. and not only attend to that gorgeous barnum spectacle the restaurant offers and proclaims even in its name: lo spettacolo italiano.
a quick note: italian food is all about synergy of great ingredients. not about transformation, like in french cuisine, where the sum of ingredients creates a result different from each part. so if you use the worst quality pasta, dreadful ingredients of the cheapest quality, a burrata which cannot even compete with the industrial one sold by mambo's supermarkets (which is actually great and made from A2A2 buffalo milk), acidic tomato sauce, unbelievably wrong lasagna left in the oven until it turns to stone, the worst grated cheese sold as pecorino and something bacon-ish sold as guanciale, well, the result will only be a symphony of synergic gross food, toilet waste like and, surely, not italian at all. because we can point out any defect in the italian cuisine, like lack of fantasy, flexibility, creativity, or fanciness. but not lousy ingredients, a mortal sin in italian cooking.
the ingredients for the so called italian food at mata città are so bad that the resulting food is offensive.
but let's talk about good things, since the food issue is easily solvable changing the products and, please, the chef or whoever is piloting the stove with such vengeance, incompetence and sub standard fantasy, even for an italian restaurant.
look at the menu. really?
service is great, accurate, polite. the rough edges, if any, will be manicured by and effective manager, if any. the maitre of the room our party sat was spectacularly adequate, professional and set a standard that the restaurants really want to have. while the kitchen still have to improve. dramatically.
