Da Martino

Da Martino was one of the first places Larry found when he arrived. He kept coming back, and it became the place he brought visiting friends. Back then the interior was rough and the food had no business being that good. Our dinner was his first time back since the renovation. The food still holds. The room was the part we couldn't decide on. We tried the starters and the pastas but left the mains as a reason to return. The tatin di cipolla rossa with robiola was my favorite on the table: the pastry crisp, the red onion gone jammy, with just enough acidity under it that the cheese had something to settle. The alici di Comacchio didn't land for me. The chickpea sticks were crisp outside and soft in the middle, but the anchovies ran too sour. The coriander vinaigrette didn't help them. The paccheri came out in slightly different sizes, which is how you know they didn't come from the supermarket. Larry's rabbit ragù was the better plate: the sauce was slow and deep, with enough artichoke bitterness to lift it. My fish ragù was fresh and light but happened to be the thinner plate. I drew the short straw on the sauce-to-pasta ratio as well. The apricot cheesecake held the line: cold, set but not dense, the fruit cutting through. Our conversation kept coming back to the interior. It's clean, the design holds, and the bathroom is worth the detour: forest green tiles and paint against the neutral modern layout of the rest of the restaurant. They kept a few paintings from the old place. But Larry and I arrived at the same conclusion. It now looks like a lot of upscale rooms in Milan, and it gave something up to get there. The service held up: attentive without being intrusive, and the waiter knew the wine list well enough to be worth listening to.