MacsTravel Blog

We arrived at our B&B in Modena wrung out from a long day of travel: a flight from Toronto to Zurich followed by a delayed connection to Florence where we picked up our rental car and drove the hour and a half north on the toll highway (a bargain at 10€) into Emilia Romagna, the culinary and agricultural heartland of Italy.

This trip to Italy has been planned around a long anticipated reunion with friends from university to celebrate and sympathize with one another as most of us turn 60(!!) this year. Our plan is to combine some solo and small group travel before we join with the whole group of 10 at a villa in Tuscany for a week in late May.

La Corte die Sogni, our B&B in Modena, is a renovated 18th century manor house with charming rooms, a good breakfast, and the advantage of free on site parking, which we definitely wanted for our first stop.

Modena specifically, and Emilia Romagna broadly, are famous foodie destinations, but all we managed the first night was some decent pizza from a little neighbourhood spot. Thin crust, wood fired, and ready in minutes. We split a 500 ml bottle of Italian beer to wash it down and crashed.

We slept through torrential rains, thunder and a vocal flock of chickens who graciously provided the eggs at breakfast. It was an early start as Robin had booked us a tour at a local acetaia, Gambigliani Zoccoli, where the same family has been making balsamic vinegar since 1732. Along with parmesan cheese, this is one of the most famous food products of the area and Modena is specifically known for its balsamic vinegar.

The tour was terrific. It was just the two of us, and our guide Teresa was very personable and informative. The family patriarch, Mario, also popped by to chat with us. Most of the extended family live on the estate, and the acetaia is actually the family home.

We toured the family’s personal collection of balsamic vinegar, learned about the aging process ( combination of wine making and maple syrup production techniques) as well as some of the customs associated with this craft. Balsamic vinegar is left to age in wooden barrels (much like wine) which are organized in “batteries”. It is also traditional for a new “battery” of vinegar to be started for each new family member. As the prize balsamic vinegar ages for 25 years, this becomes part of each family member’s household when they start their adult lives.

The actual tasting was much more involved than we imagined. We compared 12 year old and 25 year old balsamic vinegar and paired them with a number of foods, including aged parmigiana, two different kinds of ricotta, two different types of cheese omelettes, focaccia and a ricotta cheesecake. It was incredible. For comparison, the typical balsamic vinegar we use in our home kitchens is aged for three months.

We would highly recommend this tour.

With rain threatening in the afternoon we took a nap break at the B&B before heading into the historic centre of Modena. We wanted to walk off our nap and psych ourselves up for our reservation at Franceshetta 58. More on that in a bit.

Modena is full of charm, and, during a rainy week in early May, relatively free of tourists. We wandered around the centre, exploring Piazza Duomo and its imposing tower and Romanesque cathedral.

Despite the weather the streets were full of families and folks seeking out a table for late afternoon aperitifs and food.

We took a seat outside a wine bar in Piazza Roma, which seemed to be hosting a birthday party for a crew of impeccably dressed nine year old girls and their similarly turned out parents. This seemed like a much better idea than a bowling party, or going to a “Chuck E. Cheese”. It was chaotic and very loud, and also quite charming.

Other than balsamic vinegar, Modena is most associated with two other things. The first is Ferrari. There are two Ferrari museums in the area and the one near the centre pays tribute to the life of founder Enzo Ferrari and showcases a collection of his most famous designs. Unfortunately, we arrived at the imposing gate to find it closed.

Fortunately the devastation was short lived as neither of us are car people and we quickly turned our attention to the other thing Modena is most famous for: cuisine (aka fancy and delicious food). Modena is the home of Massimo Bottura and his multi-starred Michelin restaurant Osteria Francescana, routinely named one of the top restaurants in the world. You need to make a reservation months in advance and commit to a tasting menus that runs well north of 300€ per person. As this wasn’t in our budget, we happily settled for another Massimo restaurant, Franceshetta 58. This is a less formal and much less expensive option which still requires advance reservations and an investment of time and money. According to the internet, it is a place where Massimo’s team of young chefs pay tribute to the classics and play with new innovative recipes.

Robin had the “Tradition in Evolution” tasting menu that while I had the “I Love Modena” menu. The experience was pretty remarkable. The staff were attentive, enthusiastic and worked as a team to quickly shuttle food, dishes, glasses and cutlery to and from the table over the three hours it took to eat. We opted for the wine pairing, which involved a succession of small pours (thankfully) of various wines paired to complement specific dishes. Our young sommelier explained each wine in great detail: unfortunately he seemed to be mumbling in a language that was neither Italian nor English. The wines were lovely though.

We were taken in by the relatively small portions and convinced ourselves that we really weren’t eating all that much. However, the already substantial menu was regularly supplemented by other offerings (“The chef wants you to try this Brussels sprout leaf thing”) or naive decisions on our part (“We should order that famous “Tortellini by Tortellante with Parmigiano Reggiano cream” dish as well…”) so by the time dessert rolled around we were alarmed by the procession of dishes that weren’t listed on the menu which appeared before us (“The chef wants you to try these cream filled biscuits”; “Here are some wee little muffins with peanut brittle”). We both felt like characters in that infamous Monty Python “Wafer-thin mint” sketch. At one point, believing the meal was done, I tried to pay while a waiter with an armful of extra dishes herded me back to my table with the expertise of a boarder collie. Despite the evidence in some of the pictures here, the place was full for most of the evening! We just seemed to outlast most of the patrons.

We left the restaurant at 11:30, appreciated the long walk back to our car, and went to bed hoping for a great night’s sleep. We didn’t take into account the two hour nap, copious amounts of food, lingering jet leg and the presence of a flock of vocal chickens at the B&B (which triggered Robin’s childhood chicken trauma).

Oh well. We can sleep tomorrow night in Riva del Garda!