Above: Squid ink paccheri pasta with shrimp and sun-dried tomatoes at Radici
On the northeastern edge of Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea and approaching Slovenia and Croatia, we’d expected the food to deviate more from the Italian dishes we were accustomed to. We were pleasantly surprised. We sampled only a handful of restaurants during our stay in Trieste but hope these photo reviews help you if you travel that direction.
We entered Ego Ristorante from a petite passageway on a rainy afternoon so didn’t even realize there were outside tables on a heavily trafficked pedestrian street on the other side. On the other hand, swarms of tourists huddled under umbrellas passed by without a clue of the small handsome interior space where we sat warm and cozy.
Grilled vegetables were welcome, particularly the inclusion of radicchio. Salmon tartare with avocado melted in my mouth. Risotto was studded with seafood throughout, but what lifted the dish up to an amazing level of flavor was lime zest. Never, ever, would that have occurred to me to add at home, but I will.
Above: Ego Ristorante
I dislike panning a restaurant and used to skip including any in my posts, but the ever-increasing unreliability of online review sites makes me feel it’s important. Okay, there’s Mood. Repetitive AI-generated reviews described Mood as the absolute “it” restaurant in Trieste.
“Mood” salad with couscous, fried chickpeas and papaya sounded perfect but was only okay. Maybe that last squirt of ranch-style dressing condemned it. Tuna tataki paired with grilled watermelon and feta sounded like a “yes” to me, but even the overly compacted watermelon was off-putting. Pasta of the day boasted a seafood cream sauce, which tasted similar to an American cheese sauce. The highlight of the meal was the candied kumquat atop a meringue.
All of this was more expensive than many places we ate. The best news is the menu changes frequently, so you might want to give it a whirl.
Above: Mood
Casa Pepe Pizze e Cucina has no pretentions of being trendy, but it exudes a neighborhood comfiness – with neighborhood prices. It wasn’t our neighborhood while we were in Trieste, but, after going there once, we knew we’d return.
Fried zucchini flowers were overstuffed with ricotta, and peporanata with tomato confit coaxed the intense sweetness out of the vegetables. Roasted vegetables topped a fresh salad. Plump mussels politely had been pre-plucked from their shells for pasta with tomato confit, and tender octopus in a rich tomato sauce coated paccheri.
As for pizza? The kitchen excels in turning out flavorful topping for its Neapolitan-style crust.
Above: Casa Pepe Pizze e Cucina
We didn’t delve into the pizza turf of Radici‘s menu, distracted by the daily specials. Rewarding pasta dishes to dig into like the squid ink paccheri pictured at the top of this post. Or linguini with saffron, pumpkin and prawns.
And we sampled Fruilian cjarsons, a regional wheat-flour stuffed pasta prepared for special occasions for centuries near the Austrian-Italian border. Radici’s were plumped with radici and ricotta spiced with, maybe, cinnamon and cloves. A generous serving of tender, grilled polpo with grilled peaches and a touch of stracchino cheese was among the reasons we never made it as far as dessert.
Above: Radici
While Radici exuded a cozy, neighborhood feeling, Ristorante Ai Fiori was formal. A little too stuffy for us inside, but, in good weather, Fiori’s tables under leafy trees on a peaceful plaza serve as one of the most beautiful dining spots in the city.
The amuse-bouche we were offered was a pleasant polpo salad. Sardines wore a cloak of that Venetian-style saor we first encountered in Padua. Mackerel was perched on a bed of fennel. Mushroom risotto was delicious. The only dish not eliciting much enthusiasm from us was the chocolate dessert.
Above: Ristorante ai Fiori
I’ll try to tackle Florence for you soon….
Postcards from Barton Springs 