Something dawned on me when I was Rome recently. There are two periods in my life: before Loffredo and after.
Loffredo’s Pizzeria, run by Gennaro and Gina, is the garden of Eden. Their Boscaiola (sausage meat; provola afumicata) is the forbidden fruit. It opens your eyes. By the second bite, you are self conscious. You’re awake.
In a way it’s unfair because when you fly home, no pizza will ever be the same. The standard has been set and will rarely be reached or overcome. Moving from the metaphorical to the physical – Loffredo’s is far from the city centre. It’s near the end of the A line (Anagnina) but it is well worth the journey. A small restaurant with maybe 40 seats, you’ll fight to get a place. The queue is always around the block with good reason.
Additionally, this is the only restaurant in the world where the owner comes out to the people queuing round the block with a bowl of zeppoline (I won’t spoil the surprise but these are the best things in the world). Gennaro comes out of the kitchen with hot zeppoline and feeds waiting customers. If that isn’t stellar service I don’t know what is.
Described by Air France as having a “generously bulging crust“, the pizza here is truly a marvel. Traditionally, the best pizzas in the world come from Naples. Specifically they come from four Pizza Houses in Naples: Gino e Sorbillo; Dal Presidente; Da Michele e Starita. I suggest you take the time to go to Naples and sample each one in turn. Gennaro’s Neapolitan pizza is second to none in Rome. I was a patron of this pizzeria during my year in Rome. I would go once a week at least and bring my friends. To this day when I come across anyone going to Rome or indeed in Rome, I send them to Loffredo.
If you’re looking for a warm friendly atmosphere with excellent food at dramatically low cost, go to Loffredo.
My last supper in Rome took place there. June 29th 2017. The end of my erasmus year. I spoke with my friends about where we should go for this momentous occasion. Loffredo got a unanimous vote. I will never forget when Gennaro pulled out his acoustic guitar and played “No Cedric No Cry”. An improvement, in my opinion, on the original 1974 Bob Marley and the Wailers classic. Every meal at Loffredo is a treasured memory. If you take anything away from this blog, let it be to eat here.
Do you want to hear about fit bits; nipples; homosexuality; racist horses and Turkish women in saunas? Then this is the podcast for you. To celebrate Shirley’s birthday, the AquaBabes(TM) and I record our daily breakfast conversation at Xcel Leisure Centre.
This is an eye-opening snapshot into our morning routine. We discuss all manner of topics without paying any attention to who is talking and when! As is typical of our talks, we often split off into groups of two before rejoining in the whole conversation. Hang onto your seats and prepare to be immersed into our world for half an hour.
As I mention at the beginning, I dedicate this podcast to our extraordinary late friend Olive.
Have to get up and pee in the middle of the night? Not enough Texas Independence Day celebration? Behind on your coursework? The Knights of the Oblong Table have got you covered. In this podcast, we talk at length about how to solve problems big and small, coming to some surprisingly clear and somewhat helpful conclusions.
I suggested Robert Greene’s 42 Laws of Power, erroneously. Robert Greene has in fact spoiled us with 48 Laws of Power, which you can and should purchase here.
I will warn you, there are some mild profanities towards the end. This is a longer podcast than usual. I hope you’re seated comfortably.
I did not believe it possible for alimentation to bring a man to tears. Big Kokka proved me wrong. Whilst savouring the butterfish marinated in miso with pickled Nikkei, I shed a tear. I was not aware, in my meagre experience, that anything so seemingly banal could move me. The fact that this dish was cooked over coals makes it even more extraordinary. Now as I have mentioned before, I don’t like fish – but this was a unique experience.
Though it was love at first bite and I have yet to cease thinking about the butterfish, I must tell you about the other dishes we sampled. We devoured everything with such frightening speed that only the desserts were left standing to be photographed. In essence, you’ll have to take my word for it.
I ate the chauffa black rice with duck – another revelatory dish. Beautifully cooked, succulent and married wonderfully with the duck. Perhaps uncharacteristically of this restaurant, this portion was large.
Finally we shared the Iberian pork rib braised at low temperature with sweet potato and Criolla. Once again, perfect. Crispy mouth watering ribs with the softest sweet potatoes. A comparatively simple dish, executed wonderfully.
By dessert we had slowed down enough to take photographs.
The Muscova cake with passion fruit cream umeshu gelatin was really well put together. The flavours blended into one another majestically but what really struck me was the infusion of umeshu sake in the jelly. Umeshu is a unique apricot liqueur, though the Prunus Mume tree, from which Ume (the fruit) originates is related to both prunes and apricots. The crux of my diatribe is that the jelly was infused with fruit liqueur, and that is was outstanding.
The chocolate mochi, too, was great. I seem to be running out of emotive adjectives. Having been to Japan and tasted phenomenal mochi in Numatsu (Fuji) and Okayama, I was not prepared for how accurate the flavour of this mochi would be. Authentic mochi are prepared with rice flour and beaten to within an inch of their life with big hammers. Look it up on YouTube, I’m not joking. This one was perfectly sweet and the chocolate filling was not too dense, which I was mortified about, as you can imagine.
And to top it all off, it is available to book on The Fork (for now) so you will even get a discount!
In all, eating here makes you forget about all life’s worries. There are no trials and tribulations: just you; the girl you love and spectacular food.
St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote circa 1150 “L’enfer est plein de bonnes volontés ou désirs”. From this we have derived a more modern expression, widely used: “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”
But is it the thought that counts? How important is intention?
The Knights of the Oblong Table return to discuss the meaning of intention and its constituent parts. This will be based on poor recollection of legal intention from my first year criminal law module.
From misremembering case law to drag queens and murdering noisome children on airplanes, this podcast has it all!
The wise words at the beginning and end of the podcast come from Wayne Dyer, author of The Power of Intention.
