When Summer finally stops hesitating

The long weekend is over and summer has decided to stop hesitating. Tuesday morning in Belval opens at nearly 30°C, the sky clear and uncompromising, the kind of light that makes the terrace feel less like an option and more like the only reasonable place to be.

MyCaffé is back from Tuesday 26 May, and the kitchen has read the room.

This week brings something different alongside the pasta and risotto: a Carpaccio di Bresaola that deserves its moment at the start. Bresaola is one of northern Italy’s most elegant cured meats, air-dried beef from the Valtellina valley in Lombardy, lean and deep red, with a flavour that is at once delicate and intensely savoury. As a carpaccio, sliced thin and dressed simply, it is the kind of opening that sets a tone: refined, unshowy, confident. In this heat, it is exactly what you want before the pasta arrives.

The Risotto Limone e Bresaola takes that same bresaola and does something unexpected with it. Lemon in a risotto is a northern Italian tradition with a long and honest history, the citrus cutting through the starchiness of the rice and lifting the whole bowl into something bright and alive. Paired with bresaola, the combination plays with contrast: the warm creaminess of the risotto against the cool, mineral depth of the cured meat. A dish that thinks carefully about what it is doing and shows it without showing off.

The Duo de Ravioli sur crème de chou et tomates cerises arrives this week as a pair, two ravioli together on a cabbage cream with cherry tomatoes. The cabbage cream is the surprise here: cooked low and slow, cabbage loses its sharpness and becomes something sweet, silky and surprisingly deep. The cherry tomatoes add acidity and colour, the ravioli carry their filling with the quiet assurance of pasta that has been made properly. A dish that rewards attention.

The Maccheroni con fonduta di melanzana e crema di pecorino are summer on a plate. Fondue of aubergine, that slow-cooked, collapsing purée that the heat of the season makes possible and that the south of Italy has been making since the Arabs brought the aubergine to Sicily in the ninth century. Pecorino cream alongside, sharp and salty, cuts through the sweetness of the aubergine with precision. Maccheroni, those short tubular pasta made for sauces that coat and fill, carry both elements together without letting either disappear.

And the Spaghettoni Chitarra al nero di seppia su crema di basilico e pinoli close the week with something dramatic and entirely earned. Spaghettoni chitarra are thick, square-cut pasta whose name refers to the guitar-like tool used to cut them, the strings of which slice the dough into even, textured strands that hold a sauce with authority. The squid ink turns them a deep, lustrous black and brings an oceanic depth that is more complex than saline, more mineral than fishy. The basil and pine nut cream beneath is the counterpoint: green, fragrant, slightly sweet. A bowl that looks extraordinary and tastes like the sea at its most generous.

Start any morning this week with a cappuccino on the terrace before the heat of the day arrives. And on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings until 19:00, Alessandro will be at the bar with MyAperitivo: a salumi board, tarallini and a glass that suits the season and the mood. In 30°C heat, the right glass of white from Sicilia or rosé from the south is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

L’estate è arrivata. Finalmente. ☀️