Since bursting onto the fine dining scene in late October 2014, this gem of an eatery located off Soi Ruamrudee has made a name for itself with an uncommon authenticity and passion for the ages-old and fiercely preserved cooking style for which Italy’s Tuscany region is famed.
While Bangkok has no shortage of Italian restaurants extolling their menus’ authenticity and traditional origins of their cooking, tradition and family are a living, breathing part of the Lenzi Tuscan Kitchen success story.
Patron Chef (Restaurant owner/Executive Chef) Francesco Lenzi acquired his considerable cooking skills at the elite Gambero Rosso culinary school, which also publishes a widely respected guide to Italy’s most prestigious food and wine suppliers. Among the listings is a more than 70-year-old livestock farm founded and still run to this day by his relatives, which provides the restaurant’s heritage-quality hams, sausage, cheeses and cured beef.
All of Lenzi Farm’s products are rated by the industry standard-setting GR food guide as ‘IGP’ -- or the more demanding DOP -- which are only bestowed upon products whose quality, ingredients and production method can be clearly traced to their geographical origin.
Among the fruits of this close-knit sourcing arrangement was our starter, the Beef Carpaccio (580B+), a dish based on meticulous, time-tested preparation and serving techniques.
It starts out as a whole rump-steak cut marinated for a full 20 days, which condensed the fibres, allowing the meat to be precision-sliced rather than rolled flat into its characteristic tissue paper-thin presentation. This preserves the natural form and texture of the meat, giving it an exceptional flavour and bite that only gets better when mingled with the accompanying Burrata cheese, puréed arugula and 36-month aged parmesan.
As we sat entranced by the flickering flames winking from within the wood-fired stone oven -- visible through large picture windows separating the dining area from the kitchen -- our reverie was pleasantly interrupted with the arrival of a Tuscan style Ravioli stuffed with Pork & Beef (490). This quintessential Italian dish is made ever more satisfying with the classic Beef Ragù sauce topping, which inevitably resulted in our indulging in the Italian tradition of scarpetta (i.e.: capturing the excess sauce with a piece of bread) -- there was no way we were going to surrender our plate before every speck of that heavenly tomato-based ragù was claimed.
Next up was a kind of semi-deconstructed Stew of Sausage and Beans (680), but there was far more happening on the plate than would be were it served in a bowl. Slathered in a subtly seasoned tomato sauce, the savoury globes of "drunken" Tuscan sausage (it’s cooked in wine) are plated in a shallow pond of Cannellini Bean purée, scattered with whole beans that are wood-fire oven "exploded" for texture and slightly smoky tang, with tri-cornerettes of fried Polenta (refined cornmeal) and bits of dried black olive providing added dimensions of texture and flavour.
Scrumptious is how we would describe the Pera Cotta (280B), a choco-phile’s dream-of-a-dessert that plays out like an unfolding love story between a red wine-marinated pear -- wood-fire baked to a deep red with candy-like bite -- and a scoop of luxuriously rich chocolate gelato ice cream in sabayon sauce, with hints of cinnamon and a cleverly concealed stash of chocolate crumbles enlivening the palate-romancing relationship.
Also worth mentioning: the restaurant’s use of an authentic Soapstone cooking implement, and the impressive wine list which boasts vintages from storied Italian vineyards including Ornellaia, Gaja, Sassicaia and Masseto, and notable by-the-glass selections Veneroso (Tenuta di Ghizzano, Pisa) and Bruciato (Guado al Tasso Antinori, Bolgheri).
Lenzi Tuscan Kitchen
69/1-2 Ruamruedee 2
Wireless Road
Open Daily
Lunch: 11:45 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Dinner: 6:00 – 10:45 p.m.
Phone: 02 001-0116 or 095 251-5040
Email: info@lenzibangkok.com
www.lenzibangkok.com
