My favourite restaurant!

 Saturday night we had dinner at La piazzetta in Argegno, a village by the lake just a 25 minute drive from Como. La piazzetta is, I must admit, my all-time-favourite-restaurant. It's located on a very cute piazza, which explains the name, piazzetta, small square. The interior is modern but very warm and cosy with candles on the tables, which many restaurants seem to forget these days. I love candlelight, it makes your dinner so much more romantic and warm. There is a Dutch word which cannot be translated 'gezellig' the word that comes closest is 'cosy'.
The restaurant is on the first floor and has lake view! Big tables with comfortable chairs and a surprising taste of music, never a dull moment.
I went there for the first time with my Love who took me there for lunch the first day I arrived back in Como. I had the most delicious pizza of my whole life and I wasn't even a pizza fan, it was a pizza primavera with mozzarella di buffala, pomodorini freschi e basilico. Amazingly good!

Since then I've been coming there for my coffee on my bike ride. Or when I do a long ride and can't make it all the way back without something in my belly, I go to Cafe Colombo next door for a great panino and a coke.
But the best thing about La Piazzetta is the food, which I call real haute-cuisine sometimes as it's made and served with love and class. They have great people working there, a very funny waiter with great timing and a talented shy sommelier who knows his part about wine.

When we arrived I looked into the kitchen where the pizza dough was being formed and got to shoot some pictures, the owner even said I could help if I wanted....well I wouldn't mind having some pizza making lessons at all actually. Maybe I'll wear an apron next time.

Our dinner started with a prosecco and their homemade focaccia bread, which is served hot and is delicious. They make all their bread and pasty in their own kitchen and it always tastes wonderful.

Then we shared an insalata di polipo, which is warm octopus served with patatoes, salad and a dressing, and a tuna-steak salad marinated in soy-sauce with a red onion chutney. Mmmm, super soft fish meat with a sweet twist.

Then I had a risotto with funghi e castagne, which was perfect for the cold autumn day it was. It could have had a little less salt in it. Sometimes restaurants use just al little too much salt as they might be afraid of serving a bland dish.

We shared two deserts, or I should say two works of art! Wow! One was a warm apple tartelette with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice-cream and the other was a white chocolate and strawberry mousse with a crunchy pastry to hold it and a pistachio caramel hat on top. Well, you can see for yourself, it's kind of hard to describe the beauty of it.

With the bill we got some delicious Lindt chocolates to slow our taste buds down after this great culinary ride.

http://www.piazzettargegno.it

the pizzamaker

home made bread

tuna with red onion chutney

risotto con funghi e castagne

apple tart

white chocolate mousse