Donna Rosa, Montepertuso, Italy

A Dose of Mama's Cooking

Should you follow my heartfelt recommendation and choose to visit the Amalfi coast, and thereafter make a subsequent but no less inspired decision to research potential eateries rather than leave it all to chance, then you’ll find that the word on the Trip Advisor forum street is that Donna Rosa is the place to be. "Best pasta ever," she says. "We went there twice!" he exclaims. One reviewer even goes so far as to claim that "the tomatoes are like fruit." High praise indeed.


And so it was at Donna Rosa that we ended up on the last evening of our holiday, mourning the impending disaster of our return to Blighty and hoping to cheer our flagging spirits with one last gastronomic explosion of delight. Even if it didn’t live up to expectations, it had to be better than watching Manchester United spawn a last minute win over Barcelona in the Champions League final and then enduring the gloating texts from glory-hunting friends on an empty stomach.


Getting to Donna Rosa, were you to drive, would be a challenge. Fortunately, though, you’re not driving, and you gaze leisurely out of the window as your taxi lazily glides its way around intestinal roads that wind up, up and yet further still towards Montepertuso, a small mountainside village above Positano. The Amalfi coast is not without its share of pantingly gorgeous vistas, but this drive provides point-and-click friendlies right up there with the best of them. Even without the promise of decent scran at the end of it, the journey would be worth taking by itself.


The view from Donna Rosa is, however, not breathtaking. Either you sit inside, in which case you have no view, or you sit outside, where you face the car park. If, therefore, you’re the kind of screaming arse who patronises restaurants for the sheer romanticism of it all, then you are firmly advised to go and seek your jollies elsewhere. For those of us who are here for the serious business of eating, though, the absence of panorama is wonderfully complimented by the open kitchen; watch with glee the set of processes that Mama undertakes that lead ultimately to the satisfaction of your almost carnal lust for food, and your meal will taste even better.


When choosing your food, take care not to be distracted by the wine list. It is exceptional in range and caters as much for the spending power of Bunterish middling-to-senior public sector managers as it does for your average Texas oil baron (more on this later). In fact, so mesmerised was I by the breadth of options that my choice of food was almost an afterthought. So it was that I carelessly ended up with a starter of seafood salad, a dish staple throughout my holiday. It transpires that one octopus marinated in lemon and olive oil tastes much like another, though this is sine dubio nothing to do with Donna Rosa’s failings and everything to do with the general high quality of food in this stretch of Italy. And of local octopi. Obviously.


Matina went with mussels which vie with octopi, round these parts, for the annual “highest quality seafood” awards. Cooked simply with wine and garlic, they were the biggest, juiciest, most succulent mussels imaginable. Brussels, eat your heart out.


It may seem odd when dining at a restaurant that specialises in fish that I should end up with a main course untouched by sea or river. You can put that down to that damned wine list taunting me with illicit whispers of bottles costing more than my monthly take home. Anyway, having almost forgotten what I’d ordered, a plate arrived with two sausages, a dollop of mash and a wee bit of sauce. As ordered and not especially inspiring. But that first forkful proved to be a genuine “O, Clouds unfold!” moment. How can something so simple taste so other worldly? I’ve thought about this at length and have only one answer. Satan.


The sea bass with pine nuts, raisins and herbs exceeded even the mussels. Devilishly simple, beautifully cooked, wonderfully delicate, it was the best fish that Matina has ever eaten. Kai wasn’t allowed any.


The end of our main course also signalled an improvement in ambience as the couple previously seated next to us relocated inside. Arriving just as we set about our starters, the woman had immediately launched into a farce of indecision around whether to sit inside or outside. Twenty degrees is, apparently, perilously close to inhumane. Eventually, having refused the offer of a restaurant-loaned shawl, our heroine decided to brave the elements, martyrdom thereafter dripping heavy in her every word and mannerism.


Her husband, a man with a voice as loud and irritating as a pneumatic drill at dawn on your day off, then assumed centre stage. Studying the menu he announced, a propos of nothing, “we like wine”. He then beckoned over the impossibly phlegmatic owner-waitress and explained, as contemptuously as possible, that despite his fondness for wine, he knew nothing about “this Italian stuff”. “So I’m going to tell you what type of thing we like,” he continued, “and you’re going to bring it to us.” Maybe I’m just too English and middle class, but I object to people thinking they have the right to behave like boorish wankers just because they’re buying something. The owner found a satisfactory wine without any fuss, so maybe I’m in a minority. Perhaps this is the route to universally good service.


There then followed a remarkable opening conversational gambit. Upon hearing another American voice, our wine lover turned to the table next to him and barked, at a couple finishing dessert, “Are you in oil?” Remarkably, although the chap turned out to be Canadian, not American, he did indeed hold shares in an oil company. So they talked about oil. A lot. Until the Canadians paid up and left, and wine-lover-and-oil-magnate’s wife decided that nineteen degrees, as surely it now was, was absolutely beyond the pale and not to be borne under any circumstance at all.


And so they left us to our desserts. Mine, a wobbling vanilla pannacotta with a raspberry coulis, was a bit like my starter – very nice, but nothing extraordinary. Matina once again lucked out with her choice – a cheese board with an absurd amount of wonderful chutneys, honeys and spreads. Unfortunately, the barrier has been raised, and no cheese board since has proved satisfactory; still, a price worth paying, as was the bill of 140 Euros. Just in case there was any doubt, further value was added through the (admittedly consensual) force feeding of free home made limoncello. Can there be a better way to round off a meal?


There can certainly be no better way to polish off an evening than returning to your hotel to discover that Manchester United have lost in the Champions League final. The bevvy of locals drinking in the lobby seemed utterly perplexed as their English guests capered about the room beaming happily at Manchester’s defeat. Then, slowly, one of them unfurled his brow, flashed a toothy grin and pronounced knowingly, voice thick with grappa, “Ah. You are Liverpool.”