Italian Feast with Chef Fabio at Bene, Sheraton

I am huge fan of Italian food, in international foods right at the top for me is “South East Asian” and then comes right behind Italian, so it’s not surprising that when I got a mail for the preview of the Italian Festival at Bene, Sheraton with visiting Chef Fabio Colace from Rome, Italy I was excited.  The event’s theme is “Traditional Italian Reinterpreted” and is running from 21st to 30th June.

Chef Fabio Colace , Picture Credit Nitin

We started the evening with breads, dips and herbed butter, so typical to any Italian meal along with a great white wine. The bread I loved, the texture was good and the flavours great, the herbed parsley was well-balanced too but the tomato and basil based dip didn’t really appeal to me. For me it was as if I don’t know why its been kept there

And with that we moved on the first course “Il Fungo Porcino” which was basically potato filled with porcini mushrooms and served with parsley sauce and that parsley sauce was bloody brilliant by the end of the course I had wiped the plate off of every single drop of the sauce. The mushrooms were well seasoned, the only complain if any I had from the dish was that the potato was a little undercooked for my liking but then if the chef cooked it any more he wouldn’t have been able to fill in the mushroom in the tunnel, may be a little bake post filling would have solved it and oh ya a salt may be but that parsley sauce. Oh yum

The next course was “La Lasanga Bene” basically a take on lasagne with onions, roasted cherry tomatoes, mozzarella,   basill, eggplant and parmigiano cheese cream. The minute it landed on the table there were deep sigh’s around. It looked so pretty and the eggplant tasted nothing like one usually gets in the Italian places in the city, it was beautiful. This was one dish I wouldn’t mind eating meal after meal for a week may be

After the brilliant lasagne we moved on to the meat for the day with “L’Angello” – lam loin with aromatic herbs, balsamic sauce and potatoes rosti and let the messy balsamic not fool you here because the lamb was perfectly cooked medium rare, for some it might be undercooked specially in India where most people like to eat the meat well done (might as well kill it, sigh) I was surprised that they didn’t ask whether we want it well done or medium rare. And that roasted garlic with a sprig of rosemary, I shamelessly finished all of it even if it was only a garnish

The vegetarians had a choice of “Il Pomodoro” for this course which was tomato filled with a vegetable caponata and crusted with kataifi from what I could see on the table, they looked happy with it too 🙂

And as a fitting end to the lovely meal, came the gorgeous looking dessert served in a red plate (yay I don’t get the cream based desserts served in white plates, washed out the whole picture I say) and I would leave you with saying the dessert tasted as good as it looked if not better, the apple in the pastry was outstanding and the frozen cream and the prosecco sauce just came together as a dream

During the duration of the festival they also have some interesting things happening like guess the herbs (which are grown in their garden I believe) contest and a trivia quiz about Italy. If you get the questions right you can win things ranging from a dessert serving to 10% of the current bill or a spa treatment. They also have a section where they have breads, cold cuts and cheese on sale and from what I could see that day both the prices and the variety looked great

Picture Credit Nitin again

Address: Bene, Sheraton Bangalore at Brigade Gateway
Phone: +91-80-42521000
Cuisine: Italian, Fine Dining
Cards Accepted: Yes
Meal for Two: Rs 3000 /- plus plus
Parking: Valet