MO Como Lake has several restaurants and the second we visited was L’ARIA. They decided to merge Italian and Japanese influences together here, but was this necessary? Italian cuisine is perfect all on its own, don’t disrupt the peace. I love Japanese cuisine and products plus incorporating Japan somewhere is always a clever idea, but for Italy they are also in a league of their own, they don’t need anyone else to better their cuisine and simple is often best. I didn’t find the food to be at Michelin star level here, but it was cooked sufficiently, with decent products (Especially the daterrino tomatoes, eating them directly from the source is always better than a farmer’s market in London)
We visited on two occasions, once to make a fish focused dinner and the second for the meat, and this gave us a good mix of dishes to discover. The first appetiser of tuna belly and black truffle fell apart and didn’t keep its shape whereby it was difficult to eat it in one piece and dip into the gluten free soy sauce. The rice was soft, and the tuna seared.
The second appetiser of Cantabrian anchovies and Demi sel butter arrived on a platter with the butter that was fridge cold, solid as a rock and impossible to spread. And no butter knife offered. Did they expect us to use our hands? We topped the anchovies onto some brioche as best as we could using a dinner knife (Sacrilege) The combination of all three was tasty.
Then the larger plates started to arrive- Halibut roasted, datterino tomatoes, with hints of fiery spice coming subtly from the sauce. (Which was between a broth and a sauce, to me it wasn’t a sauce) The tomatoes were the standout, and the fish cooked proficiently. Overall, this was an accomplished plate of food.
Next, the largest prawn I ever did see. It was massive, accompanied with yuzu and the prawn served in its shell. Unfortunately, it was overcooked and tough, curling around far too much, it had been almost plonked back into the shell, the chef not caring what it looked like.
The side of mushrooms with soy butter, packed flavour, I liked the taste of them and the mushrooms themselves prepared and cooked well. The rice was cooked correctly.
The following night we came back to try more dishes and to test out the meat for the main course. Opting firstly for the soft-shell crab, mizuna from the tempura section of the menu. The tempura was crisp and the crab soft as it should be shell and all.
From the raw section: Langoustine, olive oil, sprouts. The langoustine was fresh topped with some pointless pea shoots (I find them a pain to eat)
An appetiser of squid and lime followed, the squid was soft inside the crispy batter seasoned well with notes of chilli and lime to squeeze over. It wasn’t the best I ever had; it reminded me of an average offering you would find in an asian ‘fusion’ restaurant in London.
A pleasant surprise next with the roasted king crab, the flavours were good, cookery was good and the product top. This might be the best dish here.
Then we tried some of the meat dishes, the first being the spiced lamb. It wasn’t bad, the lamb was a nice light pink in the middle with good grill marks. I didn’t care much for the salad on the side. The American potatoes with sour cream came as sweet potatoes which are not the most exciting, I pushed them to the side as I didn’t particularly like them. Is this an American thing? Just give me normal baked potatoes with sour cream and chives, that would have been more successful.
The black Angus ribeye with teriyaki mayo was average, I wasn’t jumping for joy with this steak. As always when you offer something that is so unforgiving such as a steak, it really needs to be the best cut of that part of the animal, seasoned correctly before and during cooking with minimal sinew and inedible chewy parts. You can’t go anywhere until you have nailed the product and made sure it’s good. Chefs should be able to taste it not just source it and think that will do nicely… Italy has a big issue with steak cookery in general I have seen.
The cheese plate next was ‘over the top’ with everything thrown onto it, cluttered and unappealing to the eye. Too much going on… A better sourcing of the cheese also needed.
For dessert, I took the custard tart, wild strawberry, and yogurt ice cream. The pastry itself was of average thickness, encasing the custard and strawberries. I didn’t understand the texture dominating on the top, this could be more refined, but the taste overall was ok. The yogurt ice cream, I ignored it, as I saw no place for it here.
Overall, this meal was overpriced with a lot of details missing, if they want to reach excellence or even a Michelin star, the finer details need to be touched upon and working on reaching a higher standard of cookery. The place was trying too hard, it unfortunately doesn’t deserve this price in its current offering.
